Always a Price
by Moon Shadow Magic
Summary: A tale enmeshed in the origins of Siegfried's Kingdom reawakens, ensnaring not only the Royal Family but others. Written for my LJ 2010 Secret Santa giftee. Prompted by one of many variations of a Swan- Maiden tale. REVISED ch 4&5 1/16/11, now completed.
1. Chapter 1

Written for twinenigma, my LJ Secret Santa recipient, who suggested a version of the "Swan Maiden" tale for a prompt, and may be getting a lot more words than expected. It's a very good prompt.

* * *

The tale was true long before the Kingdom existed. Fifteen years ago, the Prince returned, having defeated the Raven and won the hand of his daughter. Now the King and Queen and their family confront a far older power than Drosselmeyer's hand in their story.

* * *

Whether the Royal Family was living in a school, or had built a school in their home, was a conundrum that the Princess deemed unanswerable; but the arrangement suited her. She liked this palace, even though the old family castle had caught her imagination recently.

Although Father had been rebuilding the old fortress at the opposite end of the Long Lake off and on for several years now, it was still not ready for occupation, and somehow the Princess Elsa doubted that she would ever have to live there for more than a few days at a time. Castles were inconvenient places, cold and cramped and drafty, with narrow, worn, uneven stairs everywhere. It was just that the country seemed to expect the fastness on the Swan's Rock to be a Royal Residence again, someday. Father had insisted upon finishing with the towns and the farms first. That still took up time and money, even though some of the cropland had been wrested back from the Desolation of the Raven while he had been– elsewhere.

Somehow, though, the oldest tower in the castle had acquired a reputation for being haunted, but only mere months ago, as major repairs were finally completed and some of the interior restored. The Princess's grandparents and a lot of the castle folk had died in the great Battle that the older adults still talked about. Though everything movable had been hurriedly salvaged after the fight, and all the dead laid to rest, few people seemed to want to climb that last long, steep mile up the Rock unaccompanied now, to disturb the uneasy peace of the battle site. Workmen came and went, of course, but they hiked up and down in groups, arriving after sunup and leaving well before sundown.

The few that did stay after dark, came down with stories to tell. The Princess had heard some of them. Strange tales of disorientation and visions from a happier past, of becoming lost in rooms that had only one door and no furniture, or following stairs that led to places that hadn't existed for centuries. She wondered how much remodeling was going on as the place was being rebuilt; quite a lot, from some of the hints Father had let drop. Perhaps, she thought fancifully, the tower didn't want to be redesigned.

But the Kingdom had more than one royal residence, of course; and this huge Palace, practically at the far end of the lake from the Swan's Rock, had answered the desire for a place to put an arts school. Now the country had a ballet again, and an orchestra, and was working on an opera company. The setting was lovely; from here the view, across the deep water to the land laid waste by the Raven, was softened and colored by the lake- mist and partly hidden by tiny islands. It had been fifteen years since the Prince had returned with a victory and a Princess, and yet the poisoned forests and fields were just beginning to show green in the warm weather.

It might all have been hers to reign over one day, but that was pretty much okay.

Elsa was thirteen, the eldest of three. It galled a little, now and again, that her little brother was Crown Prince and heir; if nothing else, because he enjoyed bullying and pulling rank. At least she was still bigger than he was, and Mother and Father didn't like the outbursts of his attitude any more than she did.

The best tactic was avoidance: if he couldn't find her they couldn't start fighting, which brought them both trouble. Sigmund never seemed to mind punishment if it meant that she got disciplined too. Honestly, better her than ten- year- old Gunter, who would lose his temper, charge in flailing and get hurt. He wanted to be a danseur like Father, and Sigmund wasn't above tromping on his toes.

So Elsa had taken to breaking into every unused room and closet she could find in whichever house or palace or castle they were in, so long as it was one of the Crown's. She wouldn't be that rude to a host.

This morning, between early practice and lunch, it was a room that made her feel a little guilty because it was in the School, not the private areas of the Palace; when she had first peeked under the dust- sheets on her first visit, it proved to be full of trunks and boxes– clothing and furniture, things brought from the castle that could be used as props or costumes or sets, or cleaned and moved into the Palace proper for more mundane purposes.

As always, she first made her way to the window and looked out. The ground was four stories down on this side of the building, and then it dropped steeply to the lakeshore, too steeply for more than a carefully- planned wilderness footpath among the rocky outcrops with their flowering vines. She was sure this side of the Palace faced the old castle on its crag, but it was far too distant to see. Two days by hard riding, three or more by foot around the shore, the same by coach on the high road that wound behind the ridges. Or one could sail all the way to the base of the Swan's Rock and its harbor, but the picturesque rocks dotting the shore here made it long work just to reach clear water.

She turned away and set to work on a new trunk this time. It only took a few moments; she laid the little leather roll of lockpicks on the box beside her and lifted the lid.

Inside were feathers. Granted, they were old and worn and even the best needed steamed back into shape– but this grayish- brown cloak, fletched so that the shoulders were huge, with embroidered feathers repeated on the thin silk below– surely that was for a Rothbart! Beneath it, a dozen, no, more than that– flattened headgear for Odette's swan- maidens. There was more underneath. She went to the far side of the room and retrieved a sheet, shaking the dust off outside the wide window, folding it inside out and laying it across crates and the end of a sofa, then turned back to the trunk.

Rothbart's cape was gone. Another set of footprints in the dust, a soft shuffle–

"YAAAHHH!"

_Couldn't the little pest leave her alone for an hour? _ "Take it off, Sigmund. It doesn't fit and you'll damage it."

"I like it. I think I'll be crowned in it."

"You would. You know who it's for, of course."

"Yeah. Rothbart is _cool._ "

"You haven't seen a scary one yet," she shot back. Father could dance the role either way; any way he liked, in fact.

"I'll _be_ a scary one."

"You have to practice first, moron. You don't work at it enough, not like Gunter and me, or Father and Mother. You're too busy planning your own coronation," she snapped. Something was missing. Had she put the sheet down over the lockpicks? She hoped so. Maybe he wouldn't know what they were if he saw them.

"What are these?" At least he was distracted by the costumes. She held up one of the headbands, then others. _Who had packed feathers so carelessly?_ she wondered. These should never have been squashed together like this. Not that it was much better letting Sigmund handle them.

Bits of special costumes– maybe Odette's and Odile's, matching styles but two white, one black. Of course; there were always two Odettes; one had to appear upstage at the ball, behind Odile. Beneath those–

Another cloak? No, it was far too small. There seemed to be no particular shape to it, no ties or arm-holes. It was made differently, the feathers packed tightly into a roughly egg- shaped leather base. It would disintegrate during the first performance if it went onstage, though; the leather was dry and crumbly. It wasn't big enough to go around an adult. It was hardly as big as a bath towel.

She looked into the trunk. Two more, one smaller and white, one far larger and black.

Maybe they weren't completed parts of costumes, but fabric, as it were. Of course. They were real bird skins, not made by people. But for that they were huge. Geese? Big geese?

Suddenly she blinked, disoriented. A thought crossed her mind, a feeling of vertigo, a memory of woods and water from above...

"What are these, anyway?" said Sigmund. To her horror, he was holding up the lockpicks.

"They're mine, give them here." _Stupid stupid stupid, you know how he reacts to that– _

"Not until you tell me!" His singsong voice was one of her buttons he loved to push.

"Just give them back!"

"All right, you two. What are you doing in here? I thought this place was locked. I heard you the whole way from the studio." Father was in practice clothes, ready for his own session with Mother.

"It _was _ locked, I bet," said Sigmund gleefully. "I think these are her keys." He held up the rolled pouch, and their father took it.

"Just out of curiosity, where did these come from?" the King inquired mildly, examining the crooked rods and skeleton keys. Elsa was glad it wasn't Mother asking. For some reason such a question from Mother would have irritated her; somehow, lately– for a year or more– there was the intimation that whatever it was, she should stop it.

"The fair market, last fall. They were cheap, someone had them in a box with old tools and things and didn't know what they were."

"And you knew. How?"

"I watched the locksmith once when he was here fixing the school doors."

"Ah. And you worked out how to use them yourself."

"Mytho? Are they in there? What are they doing?"

"Yes, they've been exploring. You, boy, front and center." The feathery cape hung off the Prince's nonexistent shoulders and drooped to his hands, the silk dragging on the floor. The King stayed behind him. Elsa knew not to react when the pouch was pressed into her hand, behind his back. Mother would have caught a guilty expression immediately. She turned back to the trunk and the crumbling whatever- it- was hide, using the motion to hide the lockpicks as she slipped them into her pocket. Again the feeling of weightlessness as she was bent over the trunk... It made her curious. Could one of those bird- skins really show her what it was like to fly? She started as Mother's voice reached her from far away.

"Rothbart. Not inappropriate, I'm sorry to say," said the Queen, amusement in her voice. "You'd have to grow into it, though. No, I doubt it would last for a performance any more, you'd molt all over the stage."

"I want to see Father in it, then. Before it falls apart." _Little suck- up,_ thought his sister rudely, wanting to see that too.

"Out into the hallway, I think," said the King, threading his way through the covered furniture, his older son before him.

"Can I keep it?" asked Sigmund hopefully, as they reached the door.

"I don't think so," said his father. "But I think I'll take it to the wardrobe- mistress and see if she can get a pattern from it. We might get one made to fit you. A very short one, with fake feathers."

_That distracted him nicely,_ thought Elsa, _even if it spoils him rotten._ At least she had her picks back. She tried not to think that her little brother was getting a present for being a tattletale.

"What else is here?" asked the Queen. "Swan maidens, headdress for Odile, nothing usable, that's a shame..." The Queen's voice trailed off as she saw the piece of hide, then reached into the trunk. "What are these? Skins?" she asked, her voice suddenly sharp.

"I didn't get that far," said Elsa, keeping her voice even. "Just this one, and it's in bad shape."

Through the door they could see Mytho, shaking out the dull cape and indeed shedding dust and feathers all over. Suddenly he moved, but the cape obscured him; he stopped himself, one arm high, letting the silk billow. Sigmund laughed. The Queen hmph'd most unmajestically. "Elsa, don't touch them. Mytho, get back in here. What are these? I thought hunting swans was illegal."

"What are what? Yes, legally it's as bad as treachery." His voice and his face changed as he saw what they were looking at. "Elsa, wait, don't..."

The warning came too late. The small white skin had started to slide off the sheet where the Queen had placed it, and Elsa had grabbed for it. She tried to drop it at his tone, but it didn't fall. Instead it rolled up and wrapped itself around her arm. She went down to her knees in shock. "Mother?" she said faintly, "I can't–"

Horrified, Rue saw the impossible happening. The thing had grown, covering Elsa from neck to waist in the space of a second or two, and the feathers were pushing their way past her clothing, into her skin. As they spread they changed, turning from white to gray. "_MOTHER!_"

Rue tried to pull the thing off her daughter, feeling it move and cling as if it lived. Elsa heard her scream for Father, felt the usually- gentle hands try to pull feathers off and felt them tear at her skin.

Elsa writhed, curling up. She heard, as if from a long way away, her father shouting a command that made a wave of pain blaze across her body. Then she rolled upright, shaking them both off; they were all getting in each others' way in the junk- filled room. She extended her arms– what were arms?– realized she needed clear space and charged, ready to flog either human as she gained the window, and leapt for the sky. Instead of ascending, though, she dropped toward the rocks. She remembered just in time how to spread her wings and glide toward the water, and then how to fly.

* * *

The King was the first to turn away from the window. Rue heard him shout for Sigmund to fetch the guard officer and whichever of his advisers was hanging around today. Then he put his own hand on the remaining swan- skins.

"Nearly nothing left in this one," he muttered as Rue strode back. "Why the others?"

"What are they?" asked the Queen in a tightly controlled voice. "What just happened? And why?"

"Swan skins," said the King. "An ancient curse of my family, of sorts. I never expected that story to come alive again, and I don't know how the skins can still be..."

"Mytho! I just want to know what's happening to Elsa!"

"I'm telling you! She's turned into a swan," he said. "The spell has her now. She might be able to take it off, but she always must put it back on if she does. From now on, if the curse isn't broken, she'll always have to come back to that skin, no matter how well- hidden it is. It can't be destroyed without hurting her too."

"What about these others? How can you touch them?"

"Because I'm a man," he said shortly. "The story was about swan- maidens. A man isn't affected by these."

"This curse. How do you break it?" It had been minutes now. Where was Elsa? Would she just circle around until she came down in the water and joined the flocks of waterfowl among these islands? Would she fly right out of the Kingdom? Rue almost missed her husband's reply.

"The curse is bound up with the old family castle. That's as far as she'll go, I'm sure. In the story– in my family's story– a hunter took a swan- maiden's skin while she and her sisters were swimming without them, so she had to stay human, and he married her. But there were three maidens. She had two sisters cursed the same way..." At the wild look on Rue's face, Mytho forced his frantic recollections back to the point. "The hunter kept the skin hidden, but that didn't do anything to end the spell. He never tried to break the curse until they'd been married for years, and had children of their own. Even so, she took up the skin again as soon as she found where it was hidden. The husband was able to end the curse for all three of them in the version of the story I read at school, but I'm not sure what happened here, in my family. No one ever said if or how our curse was broken, but these things are still powerful, obviously..."

He finally met his wife's panicked face. "It's why I'm the Swan Prince, why the royal line is tied to the swans. I'm guessing that the spell was never broken at all. It must have been waiting for centuries for a chance to capture a new victim."

Running feet in the corridor. The King went to confront the Guard and the government, in the person of a few officers and officials. Rue listened, but did not comprehend for a moment.

"Mother?" whispered a voice at her side. Gunter was there, and so was Sigmund. "What happened to Elsa? Where's Father going?"

Rue knelt and held both boys close as the meaning of the words, Gunter's and Mytho's, finally sunk in. Mytho was going. Elsa was too young to have anyone else to break the curse for her, even as Sigmund was volunteering to his mother to go do it, that he was sorry he'd teased her. She looked at her son, at his unwontedly serious face, and in that moment realized that a spoiled eleven- year- old boy might be a Princess's next- best hope. And the Queen couldn't allow it. He belonged to the Kingdom. So did Mytho, and herself, but Elsa's father was brooking no argument. Rue made up her mind. She was not going to let her husband go alone, guards or not.

"You two will have to make do with your aunt and uncle for a few days," she said then. Which was not unusual; Mytho's mother's brother and his wife had headed the Council that ran the Kingdom during Mytho's absence, and were still Mytho's closest advisers and relatives. She hugged the boys again, awkwardly in the cramped space, and told them that she and Father would leave very soon to bring Elsa back, but they had to go out of the room now. She moved to the window as they left, confused. Trying not to be afraid. Trying to be princes, when it mattered so suddenly.

_How appropriate,_ part of her mind noted, _that the last skin is black. Odile. The substitute princess, the illusion. The raven. _

"Rue?" Mytho was at the door, holding his hand out to her. "I have a few things to take care of. Then I'll go. I'll have a few guards with me. But I have to find someone first, the hermit who first told me about Princess Tutu. He'll know more than I do about the old story."

"I'm sorry, Mytho," said Rue, meeting his eyes and shaking her head. "You aren't going without me. You'll need me. Elsa needs us both. But then you'll have to break the curse for both of us."

The last words were strained. Rue had been able to restrain the black swan- skin for a moment, but when she released her control the change was very fast indeed.

The black swan flew away from the Palace, the cry of her husband and her King still in her ears, blending in her mind with the cries of their daughter.

* * *

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters and elements are the property, copyright and trademark of HAL– GANSIS/TUTU and Ikukoh Itoh and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.

* * *

I've tried, but none of the music I've thought of really fits this one. Something will eventually turn up though.

I couldn't seem to avoid a resemblance to a similar kidnapping/ spellbinding situation from another work of mine, but here I can plead that it's from the Swan Maiden story. Which it is; in a slightly different version retold by Grimm, there's an effort to account for the mother leaving her family at the first sight of the swan- dress, which seems to be absent from many versions, including at least one Scottish mermaid tale; reclaiming the animal form seems to drive all other considerations out. Since this site is persnickety about giving other web addresses, I may not be able to direct the reader to the site of the prompt, but I will try.

I reserve the right to totally change things around once I finish the story, to make it all fit together. But for now this fits what I have in mind for the remainder of the story.


	2. Chapter 2

Written for twinenigma, my LJ Secret Santa recipient, who suggested a version of the "Swan Maiden" tale for a prompt, and may be getting a lot more words than expected. It's a very good prompt.

* * *

The tale was true long before the Kingdom existed. Fifteen years ago, the Prince returned, having defeated the Raven and won the hand of his daughter. Now the King and Queen and their family confront a far older power than Drosselmeyer's hand in their story, while others are drawn in just as unwillingly.

* * *

Always a Price–ch2

By the last of the light in Goldkrone, the man and woman made their reluctant way to the gate nearest the lake, hand in hand.

Fifteen years ago the world had changed for them. He had discovered that the most important talent he possessed was neither fighting nor dance; she had had her first taste of humanity, and relinquished it when she needed to.

Twelve years ago they had very carefully and painstakingly, so they thought, changed the world for themselves.

A story that has no ending, they had once heard, was a cruel thing. Yet no story ever did end. Whether happy or miserable, Ever After was not eternity bound in an instant, dismissed with the closure of a book or the silence of a tongue; it was the courses of lives, and lives were never to be trifled with. Not their own, not their friends', not total strangers'. And so the Chronicle had begun.

Not the tale of Goldkrone. Making all right with a town insinuated sideways into the real world had been less work than expected. There had been confusion, of course, but if lives were not to be taken lightly, then people were not to be controlled if there were other ways. All but a few had adapted quickly and unknowingly. It was as if they had always lived in both worlds, and only had to decide which was the proper one at the moment.

Which suited the writer.

The Chronicle was not a story that would come true, as the man's gift could make it. Instead it was a record of a fairy- tale Kingdom, of their friends' happily- ever- after, after the fact. Once every month or two, Fakir would shut himself in his cramped study for a few hours, late at night or before dawn so that the children did not disturb him, and would write what had happened to their friends, and then give it to his wife to read.

Four times, over the course of fifteen years, she had felt that he ought to write in the Chronicle. Each of the first three times had been the birth of a child. He had wondered why, at first.

Now they knew. Whether the Story was as far away as the stars, or as close as the thickness of a shadow, was immaterial to the woman who had been Princess Tutu. She had given the Prince his heart back, piece by hard- won piece, and still it called to her in return, when the occasion demanded.

He had realized, soon after he had started the Chronicle, how much power there was in the Kingdom of that story. Drosselmeyer had not quite created it, after all; it was any and every fairytale land, its borders nebulous, its particulars shifting with every use, its magics many and deep and varied. Some of that power had been unleashed upon Goldkrone at Drosselmeyer's death. Only a fraction: that carried out of the story by the Monster Raven and then by the Prince who imprisoned him.

It was only right, Fakir had reasoned so long ago, that some of the magic of the story be used to heal the one injustice that affected them most closely. A duck that had been human, they had found, might make a slightly odd sort of human, but even a humanity foregone could be a curse for a duck. Memory and thought, neither of which she was willing to give up, got in the way of the very important business of living as a bird.

He had not presumed to turn her into a girl again. Instead he had been able to give her the choice of which form to take, as she wished. The story could surely spare that much for her. There, she was the heroine who had given the Prince back his heart, at the expense of her own humanity.

She had, as he had privately hoped she would, chosen to be a human. He hadn't expected to be married so soon after, but it had happened, and they hadn't regretted it. He had been on the Academy staff by then, coaching ballet and teaching literature and writing; so once they were married she had been able to use the facilities to resume dancing. She had never had a professional career as a performer outside of Goldkrone. Twice her progress had been interrupted by the children. Then a few years ago the Academy had been, as always, desperate for instructors, and everybody on the staff had known her. Now she assisted with beginners and probationary students.

They lived in a small, cramped house made even smaller by the energy of two growing offspring, who at times made Fakir feel as if the lesser sins of his childhood were being inflicted upon him for Grandpa Charon's amusement. Not that he would have traded them for convenience or a quieter life, or anything else, by any means.

The two of them danced and taught, and he wrote, and they all scraped by. Yet for all these years Damocles' sword hung over them, the price of their happiness; for if the story could change Duck, then Duck might have to be Fakir's or King Siegfried's agent to affect the course of the story from within, as Fakir could not be.

The blow had fallen only the day before yesterday. Break had just started. They had just come back from practice. A few minutes later Katerina had brought him from his study, frightened, calling for him to help Mommy.

He'd found her on hands and knees, her face white, trying to catch her breath. Duck had fallen on the garden path. That was all, surely? He'd carried her inside, but at her insistence, he'd put her on the short couch that claimed one wall of the study, then he pulled out the Chronicle.

What she had felt, she said when she could talk, was Mytho's heart breaking. The horrific details unrolled beneath Fakir's pen, though one thing hadn't happened as they had feared. King Siegfried had not shattered his own heart a second time. But–

His daughter, and his wife, gone.

"Rue," Duck had said. That was all. They'd known then that Duck would have to go; Fakir could not. Not if he were to be of any help with his pen.

Fakir went back to the Chronicle time after time, that day. When Duck felt better, she thought to send Gottfried running down the street for Autor. When they returned she left Autor and Fakir to it, knowing that Autor would ask the right questions for even a distraught Fakir to find the right answers.

A black swan and a white one. Siegfried. Swan Lake? But that was only the latest of dozens of tales with women turning into swans, she knew now, and what would happen if a duck (or a duck- woman) were inserted into such a tale? Again, really. Sort of. Stories were never all swan- maidens plus a duck, were they? Not the old ones. Just hers...

She felt better by then, at least physically. Fakir and Autor were still at it by the time she and the children had eaten lunch. She took sandwiches in for them as well, and was surprised by Autor's words as she entered.

"If it's all right, Duck, I'd like to take Gottfried and Katerina to the park for an hour or so. You and Fakir need to decide how you're going to proceed. You don't need any of us for that."

Relieved, she had nodded. He was their godfather, after all, and made a point of spending time with them on a regular basis.

Autor was watching them now, he and his wife, as Duck and Fakir walked across town to the lake.

There had been little to decide, two days ago. Duck would have to go. Fakir would have to make sure that she changed properly, and arrived at her destination– she hadn't flown for twelve years. As for Siegfried's Kingdom–

There was a story at work, a swan- maiden story, as they knew already. But they did not know which one yet, even providing it was one they already knew. Or it might be a variation of an old tale. The number of swans varied in such tales from one to as many as a production of Swan Lake could fit on stage. The roles varied too, from the maiden captured and freed from (or kept from?) her form by her suitor, to the siblings cursed by the evil stepmother, to Odette and Odile.

What Fakir found daunting was that it needn't have started as a swan story. There were tales from the North of a similar nature, about seals and mermaids, for instance. They weren't dismissing those either.

The Chronicle had not been of any more use to them until yesterday afternoon: Rue had been able to find Mytho on the road near the lake shore. Elsa was still a swan; she hadn't worked out yet how to shed the skin. Rue had left her at the foot of the Swan's Rock, exhausted. Whoever or whatever was drawing them to the old castle hadn't shown themselves, but nonetheless they were being pulled in, and the closer they got the stronger the pull had become.

Then this morning, Mytho had found the hermit who had first told him of Princess Tutu. As before, he had left not with the answer but with more questions: he could break the curse for Rue and Elsa, but there should by rights be more than two swans present.

"'And how could that be, if the last hide had no more magic?' asked the King. 'Not to worry,' said the hermit. 'The story would have its cast. Princess Tutu hadn't gone to all the trouble to gather His Majesty's heart just to see him fail in such an endeavor as this.'

"But Princess Tutu resided in the King's heart. That was the answer to the puzzle the hermit had posed to Prince Siegfried, all those years ago. Was he to pierce his heart again? Against what foe, that was not to be seen?

"'No,' the hermit had said forcefully. 'Listen and think and remain silent, no matter what pain or pleasure presents itself. You will be tested. You alone, and all of you. Your power has been in words, the power of a King, vows and decrees and proclamations; you must forego that authority, and test the strength of your heart as it has not been tested since Princess Tutu restored it. If you succeed, in three days of trials you will break the ancient curse. If you fail, the swans are bound once again to the Swan's Rock, and so will you be, King of Swans.'

"And so the King left the hermit for his own castle, now enchanted by no one knew what."

Nothing more had asked to be written since. But Autor and Fakir had narrowed their search from many dozens of different tales and variations to half a dozen or so. Still, while they knew Duck was to go, they did not know what role she was to bear. They would have to send her, and hope.

Outside the gate, down the path to the dock. Satchel emptied, paper and ink and pen ready. The moon was already high in the sky, the sun ready to set, the night's chill ready to descend. Why she must fly under the moonlight, she did not know, but that was what she knew would be the way to Siegfried's Kingdom from here, tonight, for her.

No protestations that she would be fine, that everything would be all right. Only the promise that they would both do their utmost for their friends, and then to bring her home, could be true now. Everything else had been said over the past two days.

One last moment...

"Fakir, wait!"

"Now what?" growled Fakir. It was Autor, who stopped running as soon as he saw them, relieved.

"Thank goodness," he wheezed. "It's important. Fakir, when you change Duck– don't call her a duck."

"What?"

"I mean it. Call her a bird, or a fowl, or a waterfowl, but not a duck."

"What difference do you expect that to make?" Fakir was not going to give an inch, Duck knew. Not when they had been interrupted.

"Maybe none," said Autor, still breathing hard.

"It's okay," Duck said then. "He's right, it won't make any difference to me. I know how to be a duck."

"You haven't been for years."

"Try it," she urged. Autor wouldn't have run here so hard as to leave himself gasping, if he didn't think such a small distinction was of great importance. Fakir also knew, as Duck did, that Autor was seldom wrong about writing. It was exasperating that neither of the men had ever gotten past the habit of resisting the other, even if it was only show.

Now wasn't the time, anyway. Duck kissed her husband one last time, then stepped away. He closed his eyes, opened them to a blank page, and began to write.

The task resisted him for only a moment, then the words began to flow of themselves. He only had to keep up, he found. The story that was taking shape didn't want Duck to be called a duck either.

He dared not lift his eyes when light flared for a second. When it faded, it was too dark to write. He blinked, but it didn't help. The sun had gone down too. He finished the last line mostly by feel before he looked.

Autor whooped.

Fakir sank to his knees, stunned. Duck looked at him. Straight at him. It seemed to puzzle her.

"Duck? Remember, you'll need more space to take off now," Autor was saying. "And a lot more food. At least clothes won't be a problem this time."

Duck tried to quack at him, and startled herself by emitting something between a low chirp and a squawk. Why was her bill so long? How could she look at Fakir from this angle? Her body was about the right shape, but...

Why hadn't she had to find her way out of her clothes this time?

"You didn't turn into a duck this time. The story turned you into a swan! Do you understand that?"

She waddled to the water. White, of course, she was a white duck anyway. Orange bill. But now, instead of being short and a bit pudgy and quite cute, her neck curved gracefully above a streamlined body. Her wings spanned feet, not inches. Her own blue eyes looked out of a black mask.

She would be the third swan.

"We know which stories to look at now. This narrows it down to two or three at most, I think."

"Autor, shut up," said Fakir hoarsely. Duck went back to him for a moment. There was an advantage to being this size. While he knelt she could wrap her wings around him, and reach her neck around his. Carefully he returned the embrace. Then he took a silver chain from his pocket. She dipped her head. It would be a short necklace on her when she was human; now, it was loose. Fakir tied it up even shorter with a thread so that it wouldn't interfere while she flew; the thread would break if she changed back. On the chain was strung her ring. She'd refused to go without it.

In a tired daze he watched her then, as she entered the water, paddled and then ran, flapping until she was airborne. They watched her disappear, under the moon, as the stars came out.

The vigil began.

* * *

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters and elements are the property, copyright and trademark of HAL– GANSIS/TUTU and Ikukoh Itoh and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.

Still no music suggesting itself; it may be waiting for the finale. I'd like to leave Swan Lake itself to the series, pretty much, rather than using it here.

Fakir and Autor have a large body of work to go through just of European and Classical swan- woman stories. When other shape- shifting tales are added- mermaids, seals, ravens, et al- the number multiplies, as it does when other cultures all across Eurasia and the Orient are included. Possibly the best- known is "East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon", which is close to (but not the same as) the story used for a prompt here.

In Celtic lore, swans that are shape- shifters were to be known by a silver chain looped around the neck. Another site I visited had a recording of a mute swan's call. (I found also that 'mute' swans are only relatively quiet, not at all silent; they have a range of vocal sounds.) Again, references may have to wait.


	3. Chapter 3

Written for twinenigma, my LJ Secret Santa recipient, who suggested a version of the "Swan Maiden" tale for a prompt, and may be getting a lot more words than expected. It's a very good prompt.

* * *

The tale was true long before the Kingdom existed. Fifteen years ago, the Prince returned, having defeated the Raven and won the hand of his daughter. Now the King and Queen and their family confront a far older power than Drosselmeyer's hand in their story, while others are drawn in just as unwillingly. REVISED 1/19/11

* * *

Always a Price-ch3

Once Elsa started flying, once the shock and terror wore away, it was wonderful. By that time she was well over the Long Lake, migrating toward her ancestral home.

As a swan she could see more, and better, and further. Her hearing seemed to be sharper. And remembering how to ride on the air–

_Remembering from where? Or when?_ The question intruded into her enjoyment, and she resented it. Was this the first time she had ever done something on her own, that her parents hadn't decided or approved, and her brother hadn't spoiled for her? Aside from exploring the Residences. There was no comparison, though, was there? The sky today was fresh and new. No human had built it, there was no blueprint, there were no workmen or servants who knew what was in it for her to find. All hers.

Her parents and her brothers could have the Kingdom and the dance floor, if she could have the sky.

Soon enough, the illusion of freedom burst. Another swan was in her wake, above and behind her. A black swan? They didn't even live here... Of course. The last of the skins had been black. It had to be Mother. How on earth did she persuade Father to let her do such a thing?

The black swan merely followed her until she was tired. Well, no one ever called her mother stupid. When Elsa came down in the water, splashing clumsily, she realized that she didn't know everything yet about being a bird.

Something about her reflection... She twined her neck back far enough to look at herself. She wasn't white, even though the skin had been white. Of course she'd had to change into an adolescent cygnet. _An ugly duckling. Naturally. _

The black swan landed gracefully, and immediately seemed at home in the water, while Elsa was still working out how to paddle. _Of course. Mother's the Queen, and a prima ballerina, how dare she not do something perfectly?_ The resentful thought died a quick death. Mother hadn't known what to do to stop this.

Having been a swan even for so short a time, Elsa was rather glad it hadn't been stopped.

Meanwhile, Rue had found a place where she could get up onto the bank. There she stood, awkwardly for once, shifting her weight from foot to webbed foot, when suddenly she grew taller–

She stood, still in her practice outfit, the black- feathered shape wrapped about one arm, shivering a bit.

"Elsa. Come here. Can you take it off? Can you stand?"

The Princess tried, but the wish for human form eluded her. A swan was so much better. She shook her head: no, I can't.

Rue sighed. She'd been afraid that Elsa would be too confused to change back. Or worse– She knelt in front of her child.

"Elsa, listen. I want you to try again. The skin might not let go of you all the way, but you should try to be yourself again for a few minutes. If you don't do it now, it may just be harder to do later, or you might not be able to change back at all. You need to be able to control this, or it will control you."

_Well,_ thought the Princess, _put that way–_

She tried to stand.

She remembered the pain, remembered screaming–

She couldn't take that again, not yet. How could Mother face it?

In the end, she had to shake her head again. Better to stay a bird than have to undergo the agony.

* * *

Elsa was very tired indeed by the time the urge to fly was finally quieted the next day. Above them soared a sheer cliff. Not visible from the water at its base was the castle above.

* * *

Flying was a little different like this, but it wasn't as much effort as humans thought it was.

Now she had a huge wingspan, compared to what she'd been used to. The rest came back quickly: the feel of the air currents, geography from above, seeing almost all around her instead of just to the front. Few things would try to eat her when she was this size, she knew, and that was one less concern.

Where she was to go was a far greater worry. She was heading due west- south- west when the moon sank, and the only thing she had for a guide was a feeling that she must keep on through full dark.

The mind tried to play tricks with such a task, especially after the moon set: was she still on course, how hard had that gust of wind been, should she compensate more? It was much easier once she remembered to pick a star on her heading and follow it until, as it sank near dawn, a castle by a lake caught her eye.

The lake was narrow in proportion to its length, but that was no feat: it vanished into the horizon. Its surface was hardly visible. Even as she looked the morning mist thickened over the water.

The castle below seemed to beckon in the pre-dawn light. As she circled, she felt– something– take hold, not quite like she remembered experiencing Fakir's gift. She obeyed the impulse– she doubted she could do otherwise– and set down, awkwardly and a bit painfully, atop a relatively low and squat, but very big, tower. It would be far easier to come down in water; but whatever wanted her here was giving her no choice. Suddenly she was standing up again, human. Clothed, thank goodness; that was such an improvement. She'd barely felt herself change, except for the momentary pressure at her neck. The thread had snapped as intended. The chain was still intact, her ring safe.

What she did feel was an overpowering exhaustion. Her course presented itself, undoubtedly pre- arranged: she stepped over something still in shadow, through a door, down twisting stairs she couldn't see, through other doors into an unoccupied room. All she had to do was remove her shoes and crawl up onto the bed, hoping she'd be awake before anyone found her.

Across this arm of the lake loomed the Swan's Rock with its stone crown; three miles away, perhaps four. It showed darker than he remembered against the dawn sky.

The King stood by the water, here where the shore dipped and the bank was low, and looked. He had grown up in that hard, gray place. There he had trained, as every one of the knights of his Realm did. He had served his father as a page, a squire, and finally he had been knighted, though at a young age; he had never thought at the time that his swift progress might be for the convenience of the King his father (and certainly he had never known to take thought for his story's author) so that he could take up his duties as Prince.

Not that he had never traveled; certainly not that he hadn't noticed that life in the other residences, houses and palaces and even hunting lodges, wasn't far more pleasant and civilized than in any castle.

Was he paying for that preference now? Yes, defense was a priority– but the castle was now in the midst of the realm, not defending a trade route any more, for brigandage and piracy were not the problems they had been all those centuries ago. This fortress had been strong, but it had failed. The Raven had been stronger. He hadn't been able to see making this castle more important than the devastated towns and farms, folklore or no, since his return.

He had seldom laid eyes on the place since then. Since the battle, really. He could still see and hear the carnage. It had been the thing that pushed him to that ultimate act of forbidden sorcery, shattering his own heart; for it had already been broken before he had fallen on his sword. Either he would die, as so much of the Kingdom had before his eyes, or he would feel and remember nothing. No matter what, he would forget the grief and horror for a time at least, and so it would not send him mad.

But according to the hermit, once the King had sifted through his words, the old story had indeed taken hold here again. There were details that hadn't been included in the version he'd read in school. Three sisters had lived there, mistresses of the castle and its lands, until a hunter saw them bathing and took one of the discarded dresses, and married the girl whose form he controlled; the King suspected the disintegrating white one, which for some reason had less magic about it than the others.

And that was where so many swan- maiden stories ended, at least for the younger children. This story, however, had continued, right down to himself and his offspring. His line counted its beginning from the hunter and the swan- maiden.

There had been a cruel twist to the tale: none of the swan- maidens could be entirely whole without their half- lives as swans, and the swans were bound to this castle, until the spell was broken for all three at once.

Mytho had realized, once the hermit was far behind him, that he still did not know for certain whether the curse had been lifted for his predecessors, as it had been in the story. He could have kicked himself. He did not know how much time he had, or Rue or Elsa, and so he had to continue as he was, unknowing. There was no guarantee of a straight answer to his question anyway, he thought in frustration.

The garments had been kept, of course, locked away out of anyone's reach once the owners passed on. Every scion of his line ever since had been able to use magic, though seldom on a par with wizards. But wizards could not do the things that the King could; no one else could call the swans that enabled him to travel between realities, or even knew where they resided; none could sacrifice his own heart and live, as he himself had for so long.

He rested a hand on the hilt of his sword. The old hermit had told him to stay silent once inside, no matter what pain he must endure or what pleasure presented itself. Three trials on three days, to take place within the oldest part of the castle– that would be the old Keep tower, newly rebuilt and now haunted, which was backward. It was old and crumbling places that should be haunted. Why there? From what Rue had said, she and Elsa were outside, on the lake.

Perhaps, if there was a very rigid definition of silence, he should not enter the castle as its monarch, but incognito. Incognito could be a bit of a problem with white- blonde hair and honey- brown eyes like his father's. A hood to hide under? A bit suspicious. Workmen and supplies... Stone dust, mortar or plaster or dried whitewash powder? Not going in, they would only cake so thickly after a day's work. A baker's boy, hauling bread? Maybe. Or did they just haul a sack or two of flour up every day and use the old castle ovens? Even more likely. So, a miller, or a carter that helped to load the flour, as in the story he'd read.

From this distance he couldn't make out anything at the base of the rock; the mist was rising. Then over the course of moments, the tallest tower turned gold in the new light. He watched the light descend, begin to gild the rest of the edifice on the rock, then the outcrop itself.

A dark form passed overhead. He waited. The black swan circled, came down in the water, paddled to the bank, walked and flapped onto the grass.

Stood up and faced him.

"She went in the tower," Rue managed to get out. "As soon as it was dark last night we felt it pulling us, stronger than ever. We were in the air before I realized. I only just managed to veer away from it. Elsa– Mytho, I'm not sure how much she remembers about being human by now. She hasn't taken the skin off yet. And now she's up there." They knew, somehow, that once inside, they would be trapped until the curse was broken; and she would have to go soon, to stay with their daughter.

Something in Mytho forebore to tell Rue exactly how he was to end the curse, and only partly because he knew he didn't yet understand it all himself; instead he told her to watch for a third swan, and told her what he had in mind about entering the castle.

Which, they both knew, may or may not make any difference to Rue or to Elsa. Rue didn't know how much freedom they would have once she entered the tower, or even whether they would see each other.

Certainly neither of them had any ideas yet about whose hand was gathering them there.

"I'm sure it isn't Fakir," said Mytho. "I think that if anyone's responsible, it's Drosselmeyer. I don't mean that as an easy scapegoat or a way of soothing my conscience, either; I wonder, instead, how many other stories are ready to pounce at us."

"What do you mean, _your_ conscience?" said Rue; but then she gave up the pretense of trying to tease him. Her voice faltered. "I'm the one that picked up this thing. I didn't dare wait for you to tell me not to. And I still couldn't help Elsa." The Queen's control slipped then, and she looked away. Guilt and remorse were so familiar. She had hoped to feel neither so strongly again, after all that Mytho had endured at her hands once, and forgiven, and never mentioned since.

He regarded her sadly. "Of all the things I should have turned the entire Kingdom inside out to find, over the past fifteen years, it was those skins," he said in reply. "But I didn't even try. I just assumed they were still hidden, or more likely destroyed when the Raven demolished the castle. Instead I let our daughter stumble across them. I didn't even tell her the story first, so she'd know to beware. You were the one who took action when you could."

"Mytho." Rue's voice would not hold steady for her, as she had made it serve her since she had come here, all those years ago. "Mytho, what happens if you can't break this curse? What becomes of you, and Elsa?"

"That, my Queen, is the only bright spot in this whole business. From the story that I read in school, I might be a little worse for the wear, but alive and well. You and Elsa as well, but still under the enchantment."

"Elsa still doesn't know how to take it off."

"But you do. You can teach her. Rue, look at me, please– She will survive this. So will we. And the curse may still be broken. This story of ours, it might be a little different than the one I know. Here, I don't know if the first swan- maiden's husband was able to lift the curse. All I know for certain is that the original three sisters lived and died in that castle. Even the hermit didn't tell me about the spell being broken then. But any curse can be ended."

They stayed together as long as they could; but all too soon, it was time. Rue could not hold the skin off any longer. The King watched the Queen dwindle to a dark speck, and thought perhaps he saw her at the top of the oldest tower; but he couldn't be sure.

Then it was time for him to consider his own ways and means.

Elsa awoke in the new sunlight atop fresh stonework. Farther above were the tops of other towers, which meant that this was probably the oldest one, which she knew to be shorter than the others.

A few inches away on the stone lay the hide, white once more. It twitched as she reached for it, but didn't seem able to reach for her. She almost picked it up, not thinking; but then her mother's words came back to her: _it will control you... _

She left it there. Elsa was fairly certain, from what she remembered about last evening, that she wouldn't be allowed to leave here. She had actually woken up flying a little after sunset, and had thought she was circling away from this tower, but had nearly hit it instead; she'd managed to land without hurting herself, but had fallen to the floor immediately, and woken up just now, not long after dawn. She must have slept through the night as a swan, right where she had landed.

There was a door, and a small room, once perhaps for guards on watch, and a stone cistern full of water from the rain a few days ago. She entered, and went down the spiraling stairs in the far wall to the next floor, and the next. There the stairs ended in a landing and a locked door. She went back up. The door to the top- most floor beneath the guardroom was shut, but not locked.

She was surprised to find that it led to a short hallway, with two doors on each side and a window at the far end. She looked. It gave a nice view, but that wasn't helpful.

She began to try the doors. The first one she tried opened for her.

It was furnished, to her surprise, with everything new or newly cleaned. The massive canopy bed had to have been built in place, with that tiny staircase, but the hangings were new. There were chairs, rugs, a fireplace, firewood. Unglazed windows with shutters and upholstered window- seats, plastered and painted walls, chests and wardrobes. Cushions. A jointed, carven partition, the sort of screen one changed behind. A modestly unobtrusive little door in one wall.

Elsa took in all of the medieval splendor within a few seconds. Then someone snored.

Her eyes snapped to the bed. _All right,_ she wondered whimsically; _Snow White_ or _Goldilocks and the Three Bears?_

Neither, as it turned out. The stranger was a woman in a plain white dress. Braided red hair, a bit faded with age and perhaps with sun, was bound around her head and beginning to come adrift at the edges; a long cowlick already had escaped. Her skin was not as brown as someone's who spent her life in the fields, nor so fair as Mother's; the hands were quite long and elegant as well, not a worker's hands. Nonetheless, there was a look about her– she was all muscle, and thin, even about her face.

Elsa found the shoes that had been kicked off by the bed. Very large and wide, but comfortable and a bit worn rather than stylish; shoes for someone to walk in– or maybe run, if needed? Or perhaps even dance...

What was another dancer doing here, and why didn't Elsa recognize her?

She risked a look at the face again. A few freckles, long dark lashes a bit like Father's, but nothing particularly memorable or pretty about her except for the hair, and definitely unfamiliar.

Noises from below caught her attention. She found the window that overlooked the courtyard below: workers were arriving for the day. None entered this tower, or even looked up at it. They seemed to be concentrating on the outer walls. It took Elsa a moment to realize that they were making a lot more noise than she was hearing. She watched as they went about their tasks, but none came close to this tower.

"Oh. Hello."

Elsa started. The woman on the bed had awakened and was sitting up.

"Hello. Um... may I ask your name?" _Brilliant. You're a Princess, and that's the best you can do? It's a good thing Mother isn't here. _

"Frau Schmidt will do for now, I think," said the stranger, who didn't seem to be entirely awake yet. "And what may I call you?"

Elsa wasn't sure what prompted her caution in what was, in a way, her own castle. Father's, anyway. She kept her face blank. "Marie Stahlbaum."

The stranger blinked, surprised in her turn, then smiled. _She's much prettier when she smiles, _thought Elsa_, but the way she cocks her head, she looks like a curious bird. _

"A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. You look quite a bit like your mother, you know. And I'm familiar with _The Nutcracker_ myself."

_Okay, so we're one- upping each other, and she doesn't know to stand and curtsey– though she knows I'm a Princess._ "Likewise, I'm sure. I thought you might be a dancer, but I didn't recognize you. I thought I knew every one in the Kingdom."

Frau Schmidt laughed at that. "Okay. You win. I'm not from your country."

"So... why are you here?"

"As far as we could tell, I was needed here," said Frau Schmidt, which was no explanation at all. "Once I was in the area, I was, um, summoned into the castle. To be honest, I expected to find your mother and father."

"The Queen should be here, I think," said Elsa, with as much dignity as she could, "but whoever's setting us all up here might not let her with us. I wish I knew."

"I wish I did too. But firstly, I'm afraid I'm not up to investigating yet. I flew all night, and was– directed– down here just before dawn. I don't remember everything, but... were you on the roof all night?"

"I think I must have been," said Elsa.

"Then I think I stepped over you, if you were a gray cygnet. I barely saw you, and I couldn't really tell if you were alive or a stone. Whatever called us here is strong enough to make me, at least, walk around half- asleep." She yawned; she looked half- asleep even now. "But that means Rue should be here too, and I didn't see her."

"Why don't you lie down again? I'll keep watch for Mother. If she doesn't come, we'll start looking when you're awake."

The woman calling herself Frau Schmidt thought for a moment, then consented. Elsa could tell that, like Mother, this woman would have to be truly exhausted before leaving a child to her own devices. And she was; a moment after she lay back down, she was asleep.

Elsa didn't go far. She just checked the other doors. Two would open, leading to similar quarter- circular rooms fitted as bedchambers. The fourth remained locked, but she didn't want to be caught flatfooted trying to open it, not yet.

The picks were still in her pocket.

She waited.

* * *

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters and elements are the property, copyright and trademark of HAL– GANSIS/TUTU and Ikukoh Itoh and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.

If anyone figures out some music, let me know. Dvorak's New World Symphony is suggesting itself but I need to work on that.


	4. Chapter 4

Written for twinenigma, my LJ Secret Santa recipient, who suggested a version of the "Swan Maiden" tale for a prompt, and may be getting a lot more words than expected. It's a very good prompt; see Author's Notes at the end of Chapter 8 for more information.

The tale was true long before the Kingdom existed. Fifteen years ago, the Prince returned, having defeated the Raven and won the hand of his daughter. Now the King and Queen and their family confront a far older power than Drosselmeyer's hand in their story, while others are drawn in just as unwillingly.

* * *

Always a Price2–ch4

* * *

"Autor!" Fakir burst out suddenly.

Autor jerked awake. "What?"

"'Three swan- mays, horse and hound and fox faithful beyond life, judgments of iron, the curse descending through the generations, sins arising black as the Pit, the mercy of the heartless.' What's it from? I can't remember!"

Autor steadied his breathing and his temper. "It's a bit of doggerel from Drosselmeyer's notes, some early ones from when he was working on _A Strange Man_. It's just a bunch of references to fairy tales strung together; it didn't really have any connection to that particular story. After some other such it goes on to say 'From them and for them I have found a place, and added thereunto.' There's a bit more but it was overwritten with what he was really working on. It was all just tucked into the margins anyway."

"But that was years before _The Prince and the Raven!_"

"I did mention that," said Autor. "I see. You think it's an early reference to Siegfried's story."

"Isn't it obvious?"

"Well, maybe _now_ it is, to you," snorted Autor. "Drosselmeyer might have wanted to start it somehow with the swan- maidens' story. I wonder what he wanted to do with that; maybe it was with the pages the Bookmen took, provided he ever wrote it down. I never found anything further on the subject, but some of those references turn up in later works, under varying degrees of, well, disguise. He was a genius, of course, but that doesn't mean he had to invent everything out of whole cloth."

"We've been assuming this Swan- Maiden story played out like in the original folk- tale, and that for some reason it's is repeating itself," said Fakir, slowly, only half- listening. "Autor– What if it's more or less the same story, but never completed within Drosselmeyer's work, the way Mytho seems to think? Would that make it 'the curse descending through the generations'?"

Autor considered. "At this point, I doubt it makes any difference to King Siegfried or the others. The same conditions should apply, as far as we know. But Drosselmeyer might have altered that to add his own twist to the story. Since neither of us has read any such thing, it's safe to say that we'll never find out before seeing what happens to them next. But maybe you should concentrate on recording what that old hermit said, word for word."

* * *

Try as he might, the King had been unable to come up with a better solution to his problem than that given in the story.

The ovens were indeed in use during the day for the workers. A cart or so was laden each morning, full of tools, foodstuffs (including the flour) and whatever other supplies might be needed for the day. An unsprung cart. It wouldn't be comfortable.

The workmen didn't start out until dawn, and the carts followed them. It took quick thinking and fast talking, and a mix of bullying and money, from one of the King's guards to keep the miller and the carter quiet and get the King hidden without being recognized, and an excuse figured out for both guards to go along; but the Lieutenant, decided the King, earned himself a promotion that morning. It was still morning on the third day since Elsa's departure, a mere hour or two since he and Rue had parted by the lakeside.

Flour sacks were all well and good in a story, Mytho found; but aside from knowing that he'd emerge white as a ghost, he found that even covering his nose and mouth didn't stop the need for stifled sneezes and blown noses. The cart bumped and heaved its plodding way up the Rock in the morning chill. He could see nothing out of the close- woven bag. Finally there was shadow and an echo of a gatehouse tunnel, then a second time for the inner wall. Then he was being lifted down and carried, as a creak of wheels suggested that the cart was moving on.

Rustling gave way to light, and he was stepping out of the bag. The fast- talking officer had his orders, and said nothing as he helped his cramped, bruised lord to stand. They were not at the main door of the old keep, but at a small postern hidden by an odd angle of wall, exactly as he'd described to his men. They merely nodded to each other, and then the King entered his family's fastness and shut the door behind himself, a lantern in his left hand and his drawn sword in his right, a pack on his back. If he was imprisoned, he'd have food and water, enough to survive for a few days.

_Do not speak..._

The king sheathed his sword for a moment, his back to a wall, and set the lantern down.

_...whatever happens..._

The cloth he'd used to mask his nose and mouth was long enough.

_...for three days._

Gagging wasn't a good idea, at least not yet, but he could tie his mouth shut.

He went exploring.

And it was nothing like he remembered.

* * *

"Mother, in here."

Rue sighed in relief at her daughter's whisper, and joined her in the hallway, outside a door. "Are you all right? I had to find your father. I saw the skin upstairs, and I could take mine off too, the whole way–"

"Yes. I think I fell asleep as soon as I landed, and when I woke up this morning it was there. Anyway, Mother– someone else is here. I don't know her, but she dances and she knew who I was because I look like you and Father."

"Oh? Not because you told her who you are?"

"Um. I wasn't sure whether I should... Anyway, I said I was Marie Stahlbaum. That's when she seemed to recognize me. She only stayed awake for a few minutes. She's asleep again."

"H'mm. That was a good thought. I think we should see, though." said the Queen, and went in. "Did she tell–" Elsa nearly ran into her back.

"Mother?" Elsa sidled around her when she didn't move, and saw with shock that her mother's hand was clamped over her mouth.

"Mother? Do you know her? Who is she?"

Too many answers to that question... "Yes, I know her. For the moment, until we know what's going on, it might be best to call her–"

"Frau Schmidt? That's the name she gave."

"Yes. Well, to you; her first name's Duck." It had been on the tip of Rue's tongue to say _Princess Tutu_; but just in time she remembered that what Elsa didn't know she couldn't reveal, should they meet the person behind all this. Which was doubtless why Duck had called herself by her married name.

Duck, here...

...snoring.

Rue touched her shoulder. "Duck, wake up."

"S'ryf'kr," she mumbled and turned over, and stopped sawing wood. It took a few more tries.

Elsa knew, in theory, that her parents had once been young, and students; but she suddenly realized that she knew very, very little about her mother. Of course she must have had friends, and seen none of them but Father since before Elsa was born; it was well- known that the Princess Rue had arrived without even any attendants or servants. But it was very disconcerting to see Mother, the Queen of all people, and this stranger hug so tightly and laugh until their tears ran, and to realize that it never occurred to this Frau Schmidt to curtsey to a queen any more than to a princess, or even to call her Majesty... and that it never occurred to Her Majesty that this woman should do so. Even relatives and friends followed protocol in public until given leave to drop it.

Then the name sank in. Duck? The character from the book? Mother and Father were supposed to have come out of the town controlled by a tale, true, but for one of the characters to turn up here, in the flesh...

...just didn't happen. Did it really exist as her parents said? Wasn't it just a setting for a story?

It was the beginning of a confusing day.

* * *

The King thought that he had seen every inch of this tower, decades ago. The postern should have led to a staircase inside the wall, leading up to a storage room off the Great Hall on the second story. Instead it went downward into darkness. Not only was that wrong, but it should have shown walls hewn out of rock after a descent, not a foundation of huge unfinished uprights with coarse masonry between, and a low ceiling that was no more than enormous slabs of rough stone. Mytho wasn't tall, but there were places he had to stoop in the tiny dead- end chamber he found.

He lifted the lantern, and turned around. If he looked closely, there were carvings on the wall. Symbols, mostly– and a large, tightly- carved spiral on the wall opposite the–

There was no longer an entry. There were no windows... no, wait, there was a light. A shaft through one of the monoliths. Inches wide only, far too small to climb through. It wasn't cut straight through, either, but at an odd angle– not only upwards but diagonally from one side.

He looked for the door once again. Nothing. This was where he would face whatever he was to face, silent, trapped in darkness once the sun set.

He had more candles to put in the lantern, and matches. He blew out the lantern, and waited.

* * *

Elsa wasn't as asleep as they thought. There were three rooms provided, but they were staying together, door closed, the swans' hides untouched on the battlement above. When they finally got around to going to bed tonight, she suspected, there would be someone on either side of her, and probably one would be awake at a time, all the time. Why didn't they realize that she could take her turn at that, at least?

She didn't realize that the constant thrum of their voices had indeed lulled her to sleep, until she drifted back awake. Her mother was speaking, but sadly, in a tone Elsa had never heard her use before.

"Sometimes I still remember. When I do... I remember what it was like when we came back. I could act like a Princess, but I knew nothing of this place, or the people, or anything beyond what was in _Prinz und Rabe_. It wasn't much of a consolation that Mytho had been gone for so long and had nearly as much to learn, all over again– he knew the nobility, but there was a whole new generation to meet. And Fa– the Raven had destroyed almost a quarter of the whole Kingdom. I spent a lot of time smiling, and trying to match names and titles to faces, and feeling overwhelmed and useless, and it scared me half to death. Some of them were doing exactly the same thing to me, smiling and making small talk, but they didn't like me."

"Oh, Rue–"

Elsa heard her mother h'mf gently. "Don't say it was my imagination. I wasn't being paranoid; they all had eligible daughters or sisters or nieces, the ones that we knew were talking behind our backs. We could never call it plotting, but there was a lot of resentment. I'd come to a fairytale kingdom, and it wasn't much different than where I'd come from, except that I was a bigger target than just the current top student in the Advanced class.

"Mytho... well, he was almost as much at sea as I was. And there I was, no real help, afraid I'd do no more than hinder him and make us both blunder, and disgrace him. Or worse, that the Raven's blood would get the upper hand in one or even both of us in the face of all that stupid pettiness, and it would be my fault..."

There was a pause in the conversation. Elsa felt it too. The sun was going down. Suddenly she wanted to fly. They weren't needed any more here, tonight. They could leave.

Mother was still talking. Hadn't either of those two felt it?

"...But we stuck by each other. I think that was what did it, finally. We still danced– Mytho refused to let that go. He didn't push me aside and expect me to be the social half of the throne, either."

"Rue, that would have been a waste of your brain," said Duck. Elsa could tell she was amused.

"Why, thank you. That's what Mytho said, at one point. He– well, I didn't expect him to love me, not after just regaining his heart, and not after all I'd done to him over the years, even before I remembered I was Kraehe. Even after what he said to us all just before we left... I was expecting an authentic medieval fairy- tale marriage, to a Prince Siegfried I'd barely recognize. But it wasn't like that at all. Somehow he was still the person I knew. He'd just turned back into the Prince I knew he'd be. And, to make a long story short, we both survived until I was pregnant with Elsa. Things were easier once the Kingdom knew an heir was on the way."

The conversation dwindled, until after a few minutes they began to debate their urge to turn back into swans. They all went up to the battlement, to the waiting garments. Elsa's question about whether Frau Schmidt could transform without a bird- skin were answered when she did so, apparently at will. The Princess noticed the chain around her neck that hadn't transformed with her; Duck twisted her head around to make sure it was secure before taking to the air.

After a few hours Elsa was glad to have her as a teacher. The fruit and bread in their rooms would be gone or turned bad in a day or two, and they had no idea if more would be provided; but by dawn Elsa and Rue both learned of as many edible plants as Duck could find in the marshy shallows further along the shore, away from the Rock.

Then, as the moon began to set, they were called back to the tower.

* * *

Time weighed heavily on the King's hands.

He had brushed off as much of the flour as he could, and shaken it out of his hair and his clothing. He stretched, but the ceiling of this sealed chamber was too low to move around very much.

He had to remember not to eat and drink out of boredom. He could rest, certain that he would awaken at the slightest sound. He could watch, not the sun in its course, but the day's progress in the quality of the light from the shaft. He could hear nothing from outside.

The day passed, and the light waned. White and gold gave way to gray, then to darkness, as he craned his head to look up through the hole in the stone. He had his hand on his matches and the lantern when a silver beam of moonlight left a spot on the wall, entering the carved spiral.

He remembered not to shout. Eyes opened in the darkness in front of him. He tried to draw his sword, setting his feet–

–and something was wrapped around them. He kicked frantically, trying to free himself, and fell hard.

He tried to shove, and uncoil, and loosen, but whatever this was– it seemed to be feathered at times, and at other times scaly– always had another length to wrap around him. He remembered Rue's distraught efforts to get that skin off of Elsa, and remembered how it had clung, and thought that this might feel something like it.

The words came to his mind and almost to his tongue, the same ones that he had tried to use to free his daughter. He bit down on them, remembering; remembering also that his command had not been enough to loosen the swan- hide's grip.

He kept on, unable to stand or to spare a hand for his sword or for the knife in his boot. Suddenly it went dark, and he knew he was lost. He almost, again, shouted his defiance in the face of his unseen foe–

But it was gone.

Light, and water, and eventually a little food; he had his pack organized so that he could find what he needed, and then find the matches that had been scattered in the long scuffle. But now the bandage around his jaw had to bind his wrenched ankle.

_Moonlight_, he thought, _moonlight down that shaft, that touched the spiral. Two more nights._ No door had opened again where he had come in. He must endure for two more nights.

* * *

"Well," said Autor, "that went more or less as expected."

"It agrees with the story," agreed Fakir. "Something still feels odd, though. It's as if whoever's behind the story heard Rue talking about being a burden to Mytho, and used it against him."

"I know. If it happens again, it won't be a coincidence," said Autor. "Meanwhile, we're stuck. What was the next hazard?"

"Painful."

An exasperated sigh. "And nothing we can do from here, without just prolonging the affair."

"Hmph," grunted the writer. Suddenly he sat up.

"There's one thing I can do, I think," he said, determined, inking and blotting the quill before continuing on the same page he'd been working on.

"What can you do?"

"I think we can ease his pain a bit. We know he's got the best part of a day ahead; I can let him rest, at least."

"Good thought," said Autor. "Just remember, there might be a price even for that. The pain has to go somewhere."

"Back on whoever's imprisoning their King, if I can manage it."

"Be sure you can," warned Autor, "or it might go where you don't want it."

* * *

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters and elements are the property, copyright and trademark of HAL– GANSIS/TUTU and Ikukoh Itoh and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.

More detailed author's notes at the end of Chapter 8.

FFN does not allow the quotation of web addresses, but the first result of a Google search of " D. L. Ashliman swan maidens" will lead to a page with several stories, including the one from Germany used throughout this story, and several others.


	5. Chapter 5

Written for twinenigma, my LJ Secret Santa recipient, who suggested a version of the "Swan Maiden" tale for a prompt, and may be getting a lot more words than expected. It's a very good prompt; see Author's Notes at the end of Chapter 8 for more information.

The tale was true long before the Kingdom existed. Fifteen years ago, the Prince returned, having defeated the Raven and won the hand of his daughter. Now the King and Queen and their family confront a far older power than Drosselmeyer's hand in their story, while others are drawn in just as unwillingly.

* * *

Always a Price–ch5

* * *

It was a puzzle. Someone had provided them with the food and drink; with care it would last for three days or a little longer, although the bread would be stale and the fruit they didn't eat would go bad. As the second day wore on it was evident that no one would be permitted to see or hear them from below. They already knew that they would be prevented from landing anywhere except for the lake near the Rock, and the top of the round tower itself.

Other things were missing, too. They could lay a fire in the hearth– but there was no means to light it, no flint and steel, much less any matches or conveniently glazed windows. The same went for the candles and lamps. What Rue called a garderobe and Duck a toilet (and once a two- holer) had no running water from the roof cistern to the sink, although there were pipes in place.

All in all, they would have been far worse off if they had not been able to eat and drink their fill as swans, and bathe in the clear lake. Which meant that the days were for talking and sleeping.

"If Mytho can break this spell–" said Rue abruptly, then changed what she was about to say. "Duck, I have to know. How could you give up flying? I don't know if I can. All the time I was Kraehe, what I could do wasn't anything like this. This is real, and it's wonderful. I know Elsa doesn't want to stop it either."

There was a long pause before Duck answered. "I don't know if there's an answer that makes any sense," she said finally. "I was hatched a duck, of course, so I could always fly, as soon as my feathers came in. But whenever it was that I started thinking like a human, and found all the other things I liked... I'm not putting this right. If you had to choose whether to be a swan that could fly but still thought and felt like a person, or to be a human, without knowing if you could ever change again, which would it be? With, you know, Mytho and three kids and ballet and everything."

Rue paused in turn. "That's what you had to choose, wasn't it? Fifteen years ago. Except for the kids and–"

"Yes. Well, no. I knew it wouldn't make sense. But the whole way back then– that's not the right time, I suppose. Then, it was a matter of returning Mytho's heart and saving both of you from the Raven. After that, though– when we worked out that we could really do it, change my shape that is, I had to choose for myself. And as much as we tried to dance around it, the truth was that I had a mostly- human mind and human feelings in a duck's body. I'd survived as a duck, but it was time for me to do more. If I hadn't, being a duck would have just been a disguise, sort of a crutch. Or maybe, once I had the choice, I might have had to be one or the other, and I might have had to be a duck the whole way and forget being a human, and everything. There were– things I wanted to do."

"It seems you've done them," said Rue dryly.

Duck laughed. "And more. Until Gottfried came along we weren't sure I could have kids at all. And I never expected I'd have anything to teach anyone, even the beginners. But it was simpler things, too. Have you realized yet that you don't taste or smell as much when you're a bird? I'd gotten to liking my food back then, even school food. And talking. Fakir and I got to where I could make myself understood pretty well, but it's just so much easier to talk. There were other things, too – reading, having hands and fingers, walking and running, and ballet most of all.

"All in all, I haven't missed being a duck as much as I was afraid I would."

"I'm glad things worked out for you," said Rue, leaning back and closing her eyes. "Mytho didn't realize, until I told him later, that you were Tutu. I mean, he knew Tutu was the duck, but he didn't know she was you- the- girl. When Fakir began researching _Prinz und Rabe_ to find a way to let you change, Mytho wanted to help as much as he could, but I never really found out the particulars. I know he felt bad– not exactly at leaving you as a duck, but you know, we had our happy ending, and we left you with no choice and Fakir with what must have been a horrendous mess in the town."

Duck thought about that. "After you left, things weren't as bad as all that. We actually watched the Story follow you, and the town– well, suddenly it was like the town had never been through anything at all. People were confused, and that was what kept Fakir busy for a long time. They didn't quite know what they remembered, and certainly they didn't know what to make of it all. But they managed to sort things out for themselves, mostly. Fakir and Autor both say it's better if Fakir doesn't really do anything but help them sort of keep going. If he tried to control everyone and explain everything, we might all just end up in another story in town, only Fakir's instead of Drosselmeyer's."

Rue worked that out. "I'm relieved to hear that," she said at last. "Do either of your children show any sign of... doing what Fakir does? Making their stories come true?"

"We aren't sure yet," said Duck. "Kat, maybe not, but she doesn't make up stories often. When she does she draws pictures– and I have no idea where that comes from. Gottfried, maybe, but he prefers to hear stories rather than tell them. But still, he's only seven, and Kat's not quite five. They aren't as precocious that way as Raetsel and Charon say Fakir was."

"How is Raetsel? Fakir hasn't said much about her for a while."

"She and Hans are still right outside town, no new kids for a few years now..."

Elsa was sure neither of them would notice her rise and go upstairs.

So the visitor was Duck, and had been Princess Tutu, and was now married to Father's old friend. How on earth could the two of them just chatter away for the past two days, sitting or stretching or practicing, as if they'd never competed for Father's heart? As if Mother had never been...

_The Raven's daughter. An evil witch._ Elsa wasn't too young to know long since that the Prince's choice of bride had attracted criticism before Elsa's birth, from people who didn't know as much as she did. And now, it seemed, what she knew was practically nothing.

She climbed up to the battlement, up to where the skins lay in the sun from this morning. The edge of an embrasure was about the right height. She began to warm up.

"When," she asked the wind and the sky and the stones of the tower in a tight voice, "will they think I'm old enough to know who my own parents are?"

It didn't stop there. She didn't shout or yell, as much as it would have relieved her. Instead she just talked, and kept practicing, hindered by the still- rough stonework. Sigmund's bullying, the demands of being a princess and of ballet, Mother's strictness, Gunter's clinging, Father's lack of time for his children. Being a swan, and flying, and having to hope anyway that it would end, because otherwise there might be no _her_ left, and goodness knew if Frau Schmidt could get home to her own family if the curse wasn't lifted. And now, even Father and Mother keeping secrets from her and her brothers, for all their lives.

Not that Elsa hadn't asked to be told the full tale. Always the answer had been that she wasn't old enough.

"Maybe," said a voice behind her, "it isn't you."

Startled, Elsa turned to see Frau Schmidt behind her. How long–

"How long have you been there?" _Eavesdropping?_

"Only a moment," said Duck casually. "Your mother's asleep. I thought I'd better work out a bit myself."

Elsa bit off the curt reply that she'd prefer to be alone just now. _Control yourself. Take a step back,_ her father would have urged her. _Be polite. You might learn something_.

"I'm sorry if I've taken up a lot of her time," Duck was continuing. "But it's been fifteen years, and quite honestly, back then we never had the chance to be friends the way we wanted."

_That was an intriguing way to put it,_ thought Elsa. _How could you not hate each other's guts?_ Aloud she said, "What did you mean, 'maybe it wasn't me'? Whenever I ask them to tell me what really happened, all I hear is that I need to wait."

"Well, maybe it's them," said Duck, grunting as she stretched a little further. "Rue was about sixteen or seventeen, I think, when it all happened, and your father– well, it's a little funny, but from what Fakir says, he didn't seem to age at all without a heart. He seemed to be about the same age as Rue and Fakir just then, but he'd been in Goldkrone for at least ten years, maybe a lot longer.

"Anyway, we've all had a lot to forget. There are things that Fakir and I don't like to remember, and we didn't go through half of what your parents did, really."

"How old were you? If I may ask."

Duck paused. "As a girl, about your age. Younger than the others by a few years. As a duck– a matter of weeks. My real body back then was a little yellow duckling. I'm really fifteen years old, not thirty- something. Princess Tutu was as old as the Prince, of course."

_I am on top of a tower with a crazy woman._

_No. I watched them both turn into swans, and did it myself. And the story says she really was a duck. So who's crazy? See, I'm talking to myself._

But Duck– Frau Schmidt, Elsa reminded herself– was continuing. "They were, all three of them, the best the Academy had to offer. I was about the worst. I'd been bumped back into Probation at one point, and never got out of Beginners. But since I was a human only so I could be Princess Tutu, it didn't matter, in the end."

Something in her voice made Elsa think that maybe this was one of the things that she didn't like to remember.

"Didn't it matter?"

"Not compared to ending the Story, or to rescuing your parents; those were the important things. To me– it mattered a lot, of course. It's what I mean when I say maybe your parents aren't ready to tell you everything. Fifteen years might not be long enough yet for them to be able to talk about some of the evil they dealt with. And it was evil," she said, everything about her manner serious. "If they don't want you to know yet, I won't tell you either. But there's nothing fun or exciting about what happened, just people at the very worst they can be, and with a lot of power to play with."

"But you were Princess Tutu, and made it all come out right."

"I nearly screwed it up, for good, more than once. That would have meant your parent's lives, and the lives of people who had nothing to do with the story except to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," Frau Schmidt said a little sharply. Then her voice softened. "Princess Tutu was everything I wanted to be, for awhile. But she was– she is– part of your father's heart. For all that she was a ballerina, and magical, she was as human as he is, and as imperfect as I am. Being Princess Tutu didn't mean she– or I– couldn't fail, in little things, or in the most important things."

That was a scary thought. Elsa considered for a moment. Either she was up here practicing with an insane friend of her mother's, someone who thought she was really a duck... or she was talking to Princess Tutu. And Princess Tutu was turning out to be a little odd, maybe, but still rather ordinary. Elsa rather thought that Frau Schmidt would have little of Mother's brilliance onstage, but would be competent; perhaps not a great teacher, but– again– competent, and the one her students loved, who'd remember all their names for years after and keep track of how they were doing... So how–?

"How did all that happen? I mean, were you Princess Tutu, or was she you? And what do you mean, she's part of Father's heart?"

The conversation and the practice wandered on for quite some time.

* * *

In the darkness, a man wasn't sure he dreamed.

He could almost hear– guardians?– watching over him, bickering between themselves, but when next he thought he might be awake the pain of his hurts had lessened.

Other voices came and faded in their turn. One in particular anchored his attention. He could hear so much in it, guilt and anger and determination, fear; amusement, happiness, affection, humor, now a joy that he had seldom heard. Rich and complex, always fascinating, and beloved. If he spoke her name, perhaps she could come to him here. She would not be afraid here; she had been in darker places, and survived, and learned to triumph. No. _No matter what pain or pleasure presents itself..._

Another, in which he could remember the howling of a newborn in his arms, developing and growing... Had she grown so, in such a brief time? She sounded so like her mother, but free from the darkness, innocent. It was easy not to wish her into this place. Her place was still in the light and the air. Time enough to learn of the dark.

Other voices, more remote. Ones from his childhood, ones he had never known, as if imbued into the stones themselves. There were two he wanted to hear, but they were silent– no, his sons were safe elsewhere, they had no part in this. They had never been here, this place knew nothing of them–

A thought flashed, and he tried to pursue it. This haunted place. Voices in the stones themselves. Being made to come here. What else might be in these stones? What could grow and become more powerful as an ancient tower was rebuilt? Who was behind all this?

He filed that question away for consideration later. There was the problem of another voice to consider. He ought to know it. It spoke, not so much to his mind, but to his heart. Had he ever really heard it, as it was now? He thought not. He should recognize it, though; too familiar for him to name...

When he awoke next, he knew he was awake. It was dark again. He didn't want to meet his next challenger in the dark, and lit the lantern. The dim light hurt his eyes at first, as he prepared himself, and it made the shadows dance on the walls. This time he had his sword in hand.

The moonbeam touched the wall. He shuttered the lantern, to see when the moonlight reached the spiral.

The attack came, not from the wall in front of him, but from one side, nearly at floor level. A gout of fire– it missed him–

It hit the lantern. The King jumped away, nearly grazing his head on the ceiling. The lantern was snuffed– he feared it was broken now– and he was in darkness once again.

At least this time the attack could be seen, if not the attacker. Puffs of fire, hot but not much bigger than a candle flame, came irregularly from the other side of the room. Mytho could dodge and bat them away with the flat of his sword, mostly. A few touched him; he was glad that he was in wool and leather, which didn't catch fire as linen or cotton might.

He ducked as one went for his face. He didn't see the second, which hit a hole in his jerkin left by a previous one, and burnt his skin.

He almost bit his tongue, but he managed not to cry out.

There was a pause that lasted minutes. Surely it wasn't over so soon? The burn stung, hurting worse as the moments stretched out, and he couldn't spare the attention to treat it.

Then, just as he thought his foe must have gone, more fireballs. He nearly tripped over his pack; instead he snatched it up, having some idea of using it as a shield.

It was a long hour. He did not escape unscathed. And his water would run out if he wasted it on his injuries.

He needed enough for one more day and night. After that... either he would be free, or he would be here, in a place with no door. The curse would keep him here, in this chamber that could not exist.

He was glad he hadn't known about that in time to mention it to Rue. But starting on the fourth morning, there would be a rescue. His guards had their instructions. If the Royal Guard had to demolish this tower again to get Rue and Elsa out, and find him, they would.

* * *

Fakir wrote; taking Mytho's pain away, healing his injuries as best as he could in the time he had, letting him rest. He could do little enough, he felt. There was no one for the results of the curse to rebound upon. There was no one in the story to take Mytho's suffering, although he suspected that Duck and the others would have something to say about that; but if he let them bear it, their roles would change, perhaps upsetting the plot too much.

The frightening thought of a more masterful storyteller, who could block such an effort as taking away a character's pain, had occurred to them; but somehow it didn't fit. If there was such a person, he didn't know his craft, plagiarizing such an uncomplicated story in what was being revealed as a clumsy, ham- handed manner. Nothing to light a fire with, indeed.

Which possibly meant... something even more frightening.

"Maybe we're wrong about the trials being related to what Duck and the others are saying," he reflected.

Autor didn't even look up from his book. "No, that last was Elsa's contribution."

"I don't understand."

"You will, in a few years. You were always looking after Mytho at her age, remember? You chose to do that, and Charon never fussed over what you did like most parents do. Elsa's a princess, and a dancer who'll be as good as Rue ever was in a few years, or better. But she's at the age now where she wants to decide what to do for herself, and of all children that age, one in her position must have the least say in her life. The story took all her resentment and used it against her own father."

"When they find out..."

"It won't be pretty. What comes next, though?"

Fakir just looked at him.

* * *

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters and elements are the property, copyright and trademark of HAL– GANSIS/TUTU and Ikukoh Itoh and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.

More detailed author's notes at the end of Chapter 8.

FFN does not allow the quotation of web addresses, but the first result of a Google search of " D. L. Ashliman swan maidens" will lead to a page with several stories, including the one from Germany used throughout this story, and several others.


	6. Chapter 6

Written for twinenigma, my LJ Secret Santa recipient, who suggested a version of the "Swan Maiden" tale for a prompt, and may be getting a lot more words than expected. It's a very good prompt; see Author's Notes at the end of Chapter 8 for more information.

The tale was true long before the Kingdom existed. Fifteen years ago, the Prince returned, having defeated the Raven and won the hand of his daughter. Now the King and Queen and their family confront a far older power than Drosselmeyer's hand in their story, while others are drawn in just as unwillingly

* * *

Always a Price-ch.6

* * *

The moon on the second night saw three swans rise from the lake. Instead of flying directly for the castle atop the Swan's Rock, they stayed in the air. Circling, climbing, flying away and back; never out of sight, but a hunter might have wondered at the display.

The juvenile was obviously trying out her wings. There was no vocabulary yet, here, for the aerobatics she was attempting. Finally the black adult, tired of calling for her, caught up with her and snaked her head around, nipping hard.

The white one stayed in the air for some time after they had landed atop the tower, politely out of earshot; but obviously the younger of the two, both now human, was on the wrong end of a tongue- lashing.

"Didn't you hear either of us? It can be bad enough to fall in practice from the ground, you know that. Do you have any idea what could happen if you strain a wing and fall from hundreds of feet? We'd be scraping you off the ground! I know Duck warned you, I was listening! I know how badly you want to fly, but if this is all the sense you can show, you will _not_!"

With that Rue turned and went down to the room they all shared, doing nothing so _cliche_'d as slamming the door.

Elsa did not cry, but she knew she wouldn't be able to talk. Thank goodness Frau Schmidt was staying aloft; sympathy right now would have been unbearable– although, at a guess, Duck would ignore the incident if she could until Elsa apologized.

Which Elsa would do, as soon as she could speak, of course. The anger was nearly past. The shame and embarrassment would linger far longer. But honestly, she hadn't heard. She had been too caught up in her new dance to listen...

... which was one of the things Frau Schmidt had warned them about, that first evening.

Not even Sigmund at his bratty worst would have asked how Mother was to keep a swan on the ground. That nip had been _hard_. It would hurt for days, she was sure.

The light had been growing as Elsa brooded, unnoticed. Quiet noises indicated that Duck had had to land.

"Fit for society yet?" she inquired softly.

"No," said Elsa honestly. "I'm sorry, Frau Schmidt. You warned me about getting too involved in what I was doing, and I forgot. I heard you both calling, I think, but it didn't sink in."

"Well, that _is_ why I said that," said Duck. "You don't have the strength or experience, yet, to pull the kinds of stunts you were trying. And the more you get wrapped up in these things– so to speak, I mean–" she nodded toward Elsa's swan- skin– "the less human you are. It's different from what I used to do. I can feel it."

"But you don't have one of these," said Elsa, puzzlement becoming more interesting than her shame.

"I think maybe I'm drawing on the other one, the first one you found, even at this distance. Something we learned about stories, a long time ago, is that all the miles from there to here are only the space of a few words somewhere else."

"If today's the third day, said Elsa, half to herself, "it won't matter. When the curse is broken these things will lose their power."

"We don't know what will happen to them," said Duck. "All we know so far is that whoever controls them says we have to be swans after dark, until the moon sets. Otherwise you can take them off. But now we know we're really stuck here, even as swans. I think that was maybe two miles away we were able to go, before getting turned around."

"We haven't tried to use them during daylight, not since Mother and I came here. Maybe we'd be able to go further then."

"True," said Duck. "We're waiting for tomorrow morning. Rue says the earliest your father could have gotten here was the morning you came. So the earliest he could succeed is sometime today or tonight. Sometime after tomorrow, if nothing changes, we'll have to assume he failed."

"Don't say that! Please!"

"Until we know," Duck said gently, "anything can happen, or might have already. You're old enough to know that too."

And Elsa did. It was frustrating enough to be held back from things because she wasn't old enough, and watched over while doing the things she was allowed to do; but to have failed to act her age twice in one night was intolerable, doing no more than proving the adults right.

"I'm sorry, Frau Schmidt. Please excuse me. There's something I have to do."

"What?" asked Duck automatically.

"Something I should have tried from the beginning." She escaped down the stairs.

Duck followed at her own leisure, as quietly as she could. Upon seeing what it was, she left Elsa to it.

* * *

"How is she?" asked Rue as Duck entered.

"Getting over it. I didn't let her off the hook. She apologized, of course."

"Thank you," said Rue. "Where'd she go?"

"She's trying to pick the lock on the door downstairs. I'm a little surprised she brought tools on this expedition."

"What?"

"Er. Sorry. Shouldn't have said that, I guess."

"Iron? We could have made a fire? And she never said?"

"I doubt it," replied Duck. "Fakir tried that once and had to get Charon to show him how. It really needs a different kind of rock than in here. It's a lot harder than it looks unless you know how, and I don't, just like we've been trying to rub sticks together and not getting anything."

"And the door won't open for her, of course. Something's holding us here, it won't be just by a door- latch."

There was a pause.

"Duck," said Rue, "if you were going to shut three people in a tower for days at a time, what would you leave for them to eat?"

"Well, like this? Biscuits and crackers rather than fresh bread, at least for after the first day. Root vegetables would keep for a few days. Anything pickled, dried, canned, maybe candied. Nuts, any kind of nuts. I'm making myself hungry here," stated Duck, as they picked over what overripe fruit remained. "With a fire and fresh water and something to cook in, and some spices, you could have all the porridge and beans and noodles you wanted, and stews and soups. And tea and coffee."

"And we get a carefully- rationed three days' worth of what's in season, picked four days ago and a bit bruised; bread that we had to finish yesterday; rather cheap wine which we have avoided; and water that will run out today unless we want to chance the cistern."

"We don't. Better to drink as birds from a spring."

"Whoever planned this has a lot to answer for. It's almost like we got what the work crews could spare one day, or an extra hamper tossed onto that cart we've seen. Maybe we did."

"Somehow that sounds likely. Um. Rue?"

"What?" said Rue, still depressed. She hated disciplining her daughter, who was hard enough on herself and would take that scolding to heart.

"What becomes of Elsa? I mean, here, in a fairytale Kingdom."

Rue lost interest in what she was doing entirely. She looked away.

"Traditionally, girls have a coming- of- age party, usually at sixteen," said the Queen. "After that she can attend any gathering as an adult. That's usually when the father determines her dowry. To do it the old- fashioned way, as we'll be expected to do, he'll announce at least part of the amount. It's the equivalent of the boys getting knighted after their years of training, or a first solo. Except–"

"But that's almost like putting her on an auction block!"

"Mytho and I... She doesn't know, so don't tell her, but there have already been two offers for her hand when she comes of age, from men older than Mytho or me. Needless to say, they were turned down.

"We don't know how we're going to handle it. It's not just our little girl growing up. I mean, I made my choice when I was maybe five years old– but I chose Mytho. And then Mytho chose _me_. But we both know that isn't what usually happens," said Rue. "Elsa seems to have chosen ballet, for the moment, like any normal girl–"

"Um..."

"Oh, all right. I know, no _normal_ girl would want to dance at a professional level. But being a princess isn't something she wants to do full- time, as it were. It all bores her. And the way they handle marriage here– it's all about the money, and the property, and the rank, and if the girl looks good enough or has enough money and property and rank to make her look good. It's easier for the boys, of course; by the time they're interested they pretty much know who they'd like to court, or their parents still decide for them. But it's still easier for a Prince to marry below his station than for a Princess.

"It really is a fairytale place. Mytho and I just barged ahead and he got his way, of course, being the King; but there'd be no reason for a story like ours to be remembered if it wasn't unusual, just like anywhere else. We've been trying to think of how to get around it all, and at least give Elsa a choice about whether to keep dancing. We have the school, of course, but having her there years from now will smack of, well, keeping a Princess locked up in a palace. It's ironic– we can offer an education and maybe an opportunity for some independence to anyone in the realm except our own daughter."

"Ah." There was a pause.

Rue's head was propped in her hand, her eyes shut. "Wipe that grin off your face. I can hear it."

"Figured it out?"

"It's not like it hasn't been staring me in the face, is it?"

* * *

It was an exercise in frustration and patience.

It should have been simple. She should have had this door open dozens of times over. The lock wasn't even resisting her; it just refused to open. She was fairly certain there was no bar or bolt on the other side; but of course that was where the hinges were, so she couldn't even examine them. After a very short while it was just a way to pass time.

She took a break for lunch, going up the stairs to find Mother asleep. What was left of the food was enough for another meal this evening, and they had no means to preserve it even for another day. As they had been busy finding out last night– at least Mother and Frau Schmidt had found out– they could go no more than a few miles from the castle, in a circle. A dome, rather, though there would have been no escape going straight up either.

She went up to the battlement to find Frau Schmidt looking out over the lake. Just looking. _What does she see,_ wondered the Princess, _coming from a place that's in a story, thinking the same thing of here?_ Before she could move away though, Duck noticed her.

"It's quiet here, too quiet," she remarked. "There should be birds, and the workmen, and insects, and everything. Even more wind. Church bells– is that a monastery we could see last night?"

"An abbey. They have a really good choir and a carillon. Father says it was a wonderful way to wake up when the wind was right, hearing the early services."

Somehow none of them had ever gotten around to sorting out protocol; but if Frau Schmidt had been Princess Tutu, Elsa was fairly certain that she herself should be the one to curtsey. As it was–

"May I ask you something? Yesterday you only said that you weren't always sure that it was you who played Princess Tutu, or Princess Tutu taking you over. What happened? Why was a duck involved at all?"

They were the right questions, as it turned out. Obviously there were more things Duck wanted to say than they'd spoken of yesterday, and to Elsa, for some reason: how long it had been before she had found out why everyone shunned the role, how sympathy and curiosity had been transformed into an all- pervasive love that she had never doubted until she had had to give up the last piece of the Prince's heart, and found in the end that her feelings might not have been wholly hers; unlike Rue, who had known that much about herself all along...

And why she was unsure of what would happen, when she and Mytho should finally meet. She groped for the words.

"You see, for all these years, I've missed your mother more than I missed Mytho. I can honestly call him my friend, but beyond ballet, and what happened to us, and Fakir, what is there? We knew he belonged here. Rue was the one I worried about and wanted to talk to, and we'd barely known each other without fighting over your father for all that time. But it's your father's heart that called me here. We found out what had happened to you and Rue because of how he felt."

"Because, when you were Princess Tutu, it was you who gave it back to him," said Elsa, working it out.

"Yes," said Duck. "It's almost the last bit of her with me, I think, but still– No wonder no one wanted to play her. Princess Tutu took me over until I had thoughts and feelings that weren't all mine, no matter what form I was in, all the time, and I didn't even know she had swallowed me up like that. And even now there's the last bit that doesn't let go."

For the second time Elsa felt something. There was an unsettling feeling, as if someone had eavesdropped and heard what was wanted. Or like all the tumblers aligning and the lock finally disengaging.

They had told her what they knew of the story. The third trial had been something about being eaten...

How did a chance conversation enter into it? But Frau Schmidt was continuing.

"... and we, Fakir and I, we've always had to live with it. We kind of hope Mytho doesn't have the same thing happen to him."

"You haven't said much about him. Herr Schmidt, that is."

"Well, I have, but most of it was to your mother. I hope you meet him someday, so you can judge for yourself. I'm afraid he and Rue never really got along. They'd fight over your father, ever since they were little."

"Best enemies?"

"That's about right."

There was a pause. A rain shower was pulling cloud fluff downwards to the lake surface, miles away.

"The third trial," said Elsa. "What was it again?"

"If I'm thinking of the right story, it was being swallowed whole, but it was sort of an illusion," said Duck. "It might not be. I heard too much before I came to keep it all straight, and when I left Fakir and Autor they still hadn't quite decided which would be the right version."

"If it is," mused the Princess, "the first one was not being able to move his feet, and the second was something spitting fire at him. And all the time he can't say anything."

"Yes."

"Just like you couldn't tell him anything when you were Princess Tutu."

Duck stared at the girl. Duck herself had never been a great reader or good at classwork, but years in the company of a writer had taught her a great deal. And here she was, in the midst of a story; doing nothing for over two days, as far as she could see, other than visiting a friend and making up a number. One of the corps in a way, not a soloist. It was what she would often do in a school production, what she was used to doing now.

"I remember Rue saying that when she came here she was afraid of getting in Mytho's way, of hindering him," Duck said, just as slowly. "Where is this going?"

Elsa was thinking hard. "This castle had been a ruin for years. No one said anything about it being haunted until this tower was rebuilt. Father thought that was backwards, that it was supposed to be ruins that have ghosts. Tell me– In this version, or any of the ones like this, does it ever say how the curse starts? Who traps girls with swan skins?"

"I can't think of any except _Swan Lake_, and that's recent," said Duck after a moment's recollection. "They just say that the swan's form is a spell and then break it or live with it. Some of them treat it kind of like an obsession, and in one the wife keeps the skin to go visiting her sisters with, at the end."

"So why," asked Elsa fiercely, "are we thinking there's a person behind all this?"

"Come on," decided Duck. "We're getting your mother in on this."

* * *

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters and elements are the property, copyright and trademark of HAL– GANSIS/TUTU and Ikukoh Itoh and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.

Author's Notes: A few things that should probably have been mentioned before: I have Fakir using 'Schmidt' as a last name, although if his line traces back to Drosselmeyer through a direct male line (I couldn't tell for sure from the genealogical chart Autor drew) his own parents should have been named Drosselmeyer as well. Unless it was changed somewhere along the way, Fakir would surely change it himself.

A study of medieval or Renaissance literature will highlight certain differences in attitudes toward (ma-ma-Ma) Marriage and its Function in Society. I don't think the custom I've suggested is too far off, having read, f'rinstance, _The Taming of the Shrew_, and not just watched the _Moonlighting_ version. And considering (say) the works of Jane Austen, and the modern "deb."

I'm not sure just what they have to eat, either. If it's too early in the summer, the apples might not be ready yet, nor the pears; strawberries, peaches, blackberries maybe, maybe some of the grapes...

Still working on some music. But Dvorak's "New world Symphony" offers some possibilities.

More detailed author's notes at the end of Chapter 8.

FFN does not allow the quotation of web addresses, but the first result of a Google search of " D. L. Ashliman swan maidens" will lead to a page with several stories, including the one from Germany used throughout this story, and several others.


	7. Chapter 7

Written for twinenigma, my LJ Secret Santa recipient, who suggested a version of the "Swan Maiden" tale for a prompt, and may be getting a lot more words than expected. It's a very good prompt; see Author's Notes at the end of Chapter 8 for more information.

The tale was true long before the Kingdom existed. Fifteen years ago, the Prince returned, having defeated the Raven and won the hand of his daughter. Now the King and Queen and their family confront a far older power than Drosselmeyer's hand in their story, while others are drawn in just as unwillingly.

* * *

Always a Price-ch.7

* * *

"So. Firstly, Mytho can't speak for three days, just as Princess Tutu couldn't speak her feelings to him, lest she vanish. Secondly, the first trial is supposed to be serpents keeping him trapped, and that first day I mentioned feeling like an encumbrance when we came here. Thirdly, something– turtles, according to the story– is to spit fire at him, and Elsa works off a bad mood upstairs where nobody but one of us should be able to listen. Lastly, a conversation about how the role of Tutu took over Duck's life, and the last trial is supposed to be the illusion– hopefully just an illusion– of being swallowed whole.

"Twice Elsa feels something leaving, maybe losing interest in us. The exception is the time she's involved herself. Duck feels a compulsion to land here her first night, and is led to this room; you compared it to having Fakir write for you, as you put it. When we put the swan- skins on, those first few days, Elsa and I were led straight here, the whole length of the Long Lake, and made to enter the tower. Once here, we were all on a schedule for changing into swans at night; that agrees with the swam- maiden story we know, in that the sisters had to leave the one whose skin had been stolen, because they were bound to go back to the castle at a certain time of day.

"Then the stories of the tower being haunted as it's completed, rather than as a ruin. All the accounts Elsa and I have heard have the same things in common– disorientation and hallucinations in the beginning, nothing physical. Then, more recently, things that could be not only seen but felt, like furniture. There are no live candidates we can see for any of this, just this castle and this tower in particular, and the skins Elsa found. Nothing in any of the most likely stories we know has any explanation of how the skins became either the property or the curse of the Swan Maidens.

"There's one other thing, I think, that might tie in with all of this somehow, but we'd need Fakir to tell us everything, maybe. Given the opportunity, this story turned you, Duck, into the third swan, and you told Elsa you think the third skin is yours. Fakir said, correctly, that there was tremendous magic in this kingdom, and we all felt that you were owed enough of it to make your choice– so whatever comes of all this, Duck, is on all our heads, not just yours, for choosing to be human. But I don't know _exactly _where and what that magic is. If Mytho and Fakir don't either, I suggest that it's from that third skin, as you said. But I'm guessing, and today I doubt it matters to Mytho."

"So we've been up here chatting away for days, and it hurt Mytho." Duck voiced the grim thought that had occurred to all of them.

"Somehow I doubt we're the only factor," said Rue. "I can't figure that part out, since we don't know exactly when these things might be happening to him. But the story is known here. No one should have to get ideas from us. If we're having pre- determined conversations about certain things... the things are still part of the story already." Rue sighed. "I don't get it."

"In the story we're thinking of, it was always three, um, beings that went after the husband, and they turned out to be the three swan- maidens in the end," mused Elsa. "But– Mother and I don't work together like that unless we're dancing, and this is really the first time the two of you have, you know, been around each other just talking and visiting. Maybe it's trying to tie us to the plot and having to settle for just one of us at a time. Maybe it needs, I don't know, the way we feel or something."

"Maybe," said Duck, wishing she could hand the conversation over to the experts at home.

"You keep saying 'it,'" said Rue, looking curiously at her daughter.

"Um. Yeah. I wonder– can a story come alive? Is that what happened to Goldkrone? Maybe that's why the tower's only haunted now, and why I came across the skins when I did. Maybe this place is haunted by a story, and it has to straighten itself out since Drosselmeyer's story demolished the castle and it's maybe gotten mixed up, in with all the stones or something, since it's been rebuilt... er, sorry. I don't know if it could even be... um, I'll shut up now."

* * *

"They've figured it out," Fakir told Autor as the latter came into the study, sandwich in hand. "About their connection to what's happening to Mytho. But from something Rue said it might not be such a cause- and- effect thing as we thought."

Autor nodded. "Good, on both counts. I'd hate to have to tell Duck about that, especially if it turned out to be wrong. But there's something else I think you should do, immediately."

"What?"

"I want you to try it. I think it will help a lot."

"Get to the point."

"You reek and you haven't eaten for over a day now. Eat this and go shower and change into something clean. Do that and I won't insist that you sleep yet. At least you've had catnaps. Keep on like this and Duck will have something to say about the smell in here when she comes back. You don't want to give her more to deal with, do you? Go on, nothing else should be happening until the third challenge tonight."

It was the only lever that could pry Fakir out of the chair. As soon as he heard the pipes thump and whine Autor busied himself detecting and disposing of the remains of the few meals that had been consumed, putting the dishes to soak and opening doors and windows to air out the study. Thank goodness neither Raetsel nor his own wife had to see this. Raetsel would be bringing Kat and Gottfried back tomorrow afternoon from their visit. _Thank goodness for her_, thought Autor; upon hearing that Duck had gone to help Mytho and Rue, she had immediately taken charge of the children. It was so handy to have someone else who knew what Fakir would be doing and how important it was. Raetsel and Hans were always happy to add a few more kids to their household, which Autor suspected was a madhouse in the normal course of things.

As he brought some order to the loose pages that had scattered themselves throughout the room, he remembered airing out his Drosselmeyer's Study after initiating Fakir into the way of the true writer_. 'Hone his mind' indeed. How stupid._ Fakir had no problem concentrating on a story for three days, especially where Duck was concerned. But then someone had to clean up after him, and this time it was Autor. Again.

* * *

Last night's burns stung. At least Mytho hadn't gone into shock, but he had drunk enough that his water was almost gone.

He knew what the last trial should be, and it frightened him more than the others, more than almost anything. He hoped it wouldn't be like feeling the Raven's blood pervade his heart, and then his body. But of course it might be. It might even be worse, and that he had a hard time imagining.

This _wouldn't do_. He was winding himself up, making himself afraid, preparing himself for failure. He could betray this whole effort, set his and his family's suffering at naught, with no help from an opponent. He was perfectly capable of meeting this as he should, as a King should, as a father should for a daughter; as a husband had for his wife of fifteen years, in a story, in his bloodline...

Another thought had almost touched that one. Frustrated, he could not make a connection he knew should be there. He needed rest, real rest, not half- awake drowsing and crazed half- asleep thinking, with music looping through every semi- conscious moment.

He tried to remember. Nothing had been set on fire last night, though leather and wool had smouldered, the stench of it still lingering. The first night's impression had been of both scales and feathers, perhaps like a snake but a foot thick; last night's... he had never seen nor touched the attacker. The story he'd seen so long ago had made it into a turtle or tortoise or some such. He had nothing else to go by. A rope, a snake, a tree: an elephant to three blind men, one of Gunter's favorite nursery tales...

A few feet away, the last candle but one sputtered a bit, almost burnt down to its base, which was stuck in a pool of wax melted from its predecessors. As he had done obsessively for the last day, he felt around his pack. Matches, there; last candle, there. He had almost foregone the comfort of light today. He knew now every detail of every one of the seven upright monoliths and the slab they supported, and the stones laid for the floor, and even the look of the stones that completed the walls, filling the gaps between uprights.

The bandage had long since gone back around his jaws. He must look a fright, he thought inconsequentially. His hands were gray from flour and dust, with burnt holes in his clothing and scabbed burns on his skin from last night, and with this cloth tying his jaws shut...

It didn't register that the moonbeam had entered the very heart of the spiral, because he had nearly screamed. It was all illusion, and had always been. This was a tomb, and he had been dead here for days. No wonder he hadn't spoken. He could not. Corpses did not.

Then the darkness engulfed him, seeking a way transform the illusion into truth.

* * *

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters and elements are the property, copyright and trademark of HAL– GANSIS/TUTU and Ikukoh Itoh and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.

* * *

My favorite version of _A Christmas Carol_ is the George C. Scott one. One detail in it is that Marley has to unbind his jaw before he can speak. If this wasn't done to a body (as Marley demonstrates) there wasn't anything else to hold the mouth closed.

Here and in Chapter 8, the description of a tomb is cobbled from dolmens found all over Europe. The burial chamber is all that remains, the roof slab perched on upright wall slabs, with the mound covering it long since washed away.

The tumulus of the Hochdorf Prince is a recently- discovered example of a mound covering a tomb chamber, though the construction differs greatly; it's a much, much later and more sophisticated example, from the end of the Hallstatt period. Its grave goods were intact, and included a huge bronze cauldron for drink, a bronze couch on casters, and gold jewelry adorning the body. Mytho is thinking of such a one in Chapter 8. The megalithic dolmens, however, are older than the Celtic cultures; the two are conflated here for the convenience of the Story. (Bad pun.)

'The elephant and the three blind men' is in a collection of Mother Goose stories and poems somewhere in my house. I have no idea if it has been translated into German as a poem, but I daresay the story is known.

If anyone figures out some music, let me know. Dvorak's "New World Symphony" keeps popping up for me now.

More detailed author's notes at the end of Chapter 8.

FFN does not allow the quotation of web addresses, but the first result of a Google search of " D. L. Ashliman swan maidens" will lead to a page with several stories, including the one from Germany used throughout this story, and several others.


	8. Chapter 8

Written for twinenigma, my LJ Secret Santa recipient, who suggested a version of the "Swan Maiden" tale for a prompt, and may be getting a lot more words than expected. It's a very good prompt; see Author's Notes at the end for more information.

The tale was true long before the Kingdom existed. Fifteen years ago, the Prince returned, having defeated the Raven and won the hand of his daughter. Now the King and Queen and their family confront a far older power than Drosselmeyer's hand in their story, while others are drawn in just as unwillingly. Small corrections 1/19/11.

* * *

Always a Price-ch.8

* * *

Rue paddled aimlessly, after a night of aimless flights. It was calming. Goodness knew the others didn't need her around them, fretting. Duck was still foraging in the shallows, for much the same reason, Rue thought.

Overhead Elsa flew, working off her own nerves, mostly circling the castle and its tower, then going as far as the limits they had found last night. Rue watched, of course, as did Duck, but tonight she was behaving herself.

Rue was proud of her daughter. This afternoon had only been the latest achievement, figuring out more than she and Duck had been able to about their situation. Elsa had more than earned back her wings, Rue felt, for as long as they were available. So long as she used them safely, of course.

The moon was full tonight, and would set around sunrise. The sky was just beginning to show a shade lighter than black when something jolted Rue out of her reverie.

Duck cried out, taking to the air as swiftly as possible, and Rue followed as she saw Elsa coming in, pumping her wings as hard as a swan could. They all headed for the tower.

Duck reached it first, landing clumsily; Elsa was next, backwinging as hard as she had been flying, and came down just as hard. Then Rue–

She nearly didn't make it. She stumbled as she landed, and came up against the wall, upright and human, well ahead of time and with the wind knocked out of her.

Elsa had reached Duck, who seemed to be hurt– feathers? She was still covered in white feathers? Duck was pleading with someone they couldn't see: _don't give up, you're still alive, I haven't left you..._

Rue was almost certain that Duck was not quite referring to herself. Feathers...

"Frau Schmidt! Can you hear me? Mother, what's wrong with her?" Elsa was crying now, terrified.

"I don't know! Du–" Rue swallowed that. _If I call her a duck, what happens if she believes me? Is she half swan, or half duck? Is this what Autor was thinking of, before she left, telling Fakir not to try to turn her into a duck? He never acts without a reason, Duck says..._

"Frau Schmidt! What's going on? What's happening? Stay with us! You're not a bird, you've been a human for years!"

At that, it seemed, Duck's hand moved, trying to reach her throat. Rue saw it. She clasped the hand, moving it, helping Duck grasp the ring on its chain.

"There, take hold of it! It's yours, you need a hand to wear it! Fakir gave that to you! Hold on to it!" Something seemed to be happening. Feathers were falling off, pinfeathers being reabsorbed into her skin. Rue unclasped the chain and worked it out of the ring and Duck's hand, found the ring finger, managed to put it on her without dropping it.

"There you go," said Rue as Duck went limp. "A bird doesn't have fingers to wear a ring. You're a woman, not a bird."

Duck was breathing regularly now. Rue and Elsa, relieved, saw her open her eyes– but the eyes weren't focused on them. Suddenly Duck tensed again.

"No! Don't give up, Mytho, you're still alive! I'm with you, you're whole, all of you, all here..."

The cries subsided into mumbling, but it didn't stop.

Elsa looked at her mother, stunned and still frightened. "What's wrong? Mother, what's wrong with her? It's like she isn't in there! Where is she?"

Suddenly it hit Rue, and she began cursing Drosselmeyer roundly in every language she knew. Not only had he left her a duck when his story was done, he hadn't even left the duck a heart to call her own, not entirely. Heart shards... and the last had been Princess Tutu's, the one who picked up the pieces and kept them together, and perhaps had never quite distinguished between Prince Siegfried's heart and Duck's...

"Wow, Mother," said Elsa, "can I use some of those?"

Possibly nothing else could have shut Rue up. "Elsa, I want you down at the bottom door. Try to get it open and don't stop until it does open. When that happens, yell and keep yelling until at least one of us gets there. Just keep that door open. Use some of that firewood to block it. Here, let me up there." Rue moved, taking Duck's head into her lap.

"But what's happening?"

"If you were right yesterday, the story is ending. Your father is somewhere here fighting it, and it had to stop wasting attention on us after we landed. Frau Schmidt is with Mytho, in a way–"

"Princess Tutu, you mean, don't you? That's why she's here and she was a swan instead of a duck, the white swan."

"Yes. Now go."

"I'll get a blanket first. She's cold."

Rue nodded. Elsa was right; it might still be a long wait, and Duck's hands were indeed cold. Elsa ran.

* * *

The candle, if it had ever existed, was out. The King was hunched with his knees to his chest. He should be lying flat, though, shouldn't he? The dead were laid out in such a grave. There would be a huge mound piled over this chamber, with a carved stone pillar set on the top to show that a king slept here. Wouldn't there be food and drink in here, and gold, and a well- crafted couch for him to lie on, covered in furs and fine cloth? If he opened his eyes, surely that was what he'd see.

He could almost feel the darkness enveloping him, just as he had felt intense cold press against his clothing when he had been alive...

A voice arose, he didn't know from where: _you are still alive, I am with you..._

_Your heart is still whole. You still live. Don't give up._

He should know it. It seemed to be a woman's, but not Rue's; someone he loved, in a far different fashion from the way he loved his wife or his daughter, someone who knew the heart she spoke of...

Why could he not put a name to her?

He didn't have to, did he? It came down to this, that he had to believe one or the other: the evidence of his eyes, or the voice of his heart.

He uncoiled himself, but not to lie flat. He stood, and opened his eyes.

_Princess Tutu_, he suddenly remembered. How long had he been on the floor, letting darkness consume him? On the far wall, a sliver of gray light was almost gone, its edges jagged from the lines of the carved spiral.

_Oh no you don't_, he thought. He drew his sword, adding his left hand to his grip. Still saying nothing, he advanced to a place where he was certain of his range, and lunged.

He didn't know what to expect, but a broken sword was high on the list, or at least a blunted tip. Not a _thunk_. It still jarred his weary arms and shoulders. He followed the blade carefully with one hand, and felt wood. Honest wood. It took a fair amount of effort to work the tip of the sword free from an ordinary door.

He found his pack, lit the last candle. The walls of the small, bare room were ordinary dressed stone, ready to be plastered over. The door he'd stabbed was one of two. It led into the partly- finished Great Hall of the Round Tower; stairs led down from the one behind. The postern he'd come through would be at the bottom.

It was over.

He hoped.

* * *

Duck's eyes came open an instant before Elsa's call echoed up the spiral staircase.

"Rue. What happened?"

Rue sagged with relief as Duck sat up, then she ordered Duck to stay put while she answered her daughter.

"Now. Can you walk? If not, just stay here."

"I can walk. Go ahead, I'll follow. Go find Mytho. I'll be fine."

Rue went.

It was dawn, the moon just setting, the sun not yet showing. Duck stood unsteadily, bundled the blanket under one arm in case Mytho needed it, and made her shaky way carefully down the stairs.

Mytho remembered to pull the cloth from his face. It was dirty. He was dirty. Filthy. He needed to know that Rue and Elsa were all right, then he needed a drink, and a bath, and a meal, and sleep. Maybe not in that order.

He tried to remember the layout of the room. Those were the main Hall doors to an anteroom, then outside. Were his guards still waiting for him?

A door slammed open. "Mother, there!"

"Mytho!"

He managed to sheathe his sword before the two of them collided with him. His voice startled him; it sounded like nothing he remembered– but he could use it now.

"Rue," he said, "Elsa." They were all right. He could hold them again. Rue was crying. Elsa's arm was touching one of his burnt places but it wasn't important just now.

He was vaguely aware, even as soldiers in livery heaved the main doors open, even as the lieutenant led others from the storage room he had vacated, that a third woman had advanced to join them. She was hanging back, smiling. He raised his eyes, not at all surprised to see her now.

"Princess Tutu."

* * *

The brother was apparently under no vow of silence. Mytho didn't interrupt; the man was interesting enough to distract him from the pain of the burns as they were treated. There was history to his own castle that the King had never heard, for all that he had been raised there.

"The Count who began the Round Tower was somewhat of an antiquarian, almost unique for his day," the man said as he wrung out a cloth. "His third son was sent to the Church, and served as a scribe here. He drew pictures in the margins like any novice rather than embellishing his script. It's a wonder his record of the building of the Round Tower survived. I believe the Abbey has the only copy there ever was. But before they could start on the foundation, he drew the standing stones that had to be removed.

"I believe they were used as they were to pave the inner courtyard, and are still there, not far from the original site. The villagers thought it was unlucky to move or break them. What the picture shows is several uprights with a huge slab roof balanced on top, and there were other stones just as large lying nearby. He drew also the markings he could make out."

One of them would be a close- coiled spiral, meticulously carved, the King was certain; but the man was continuing.

"The villagers assured him that it was the tomb of an ancient king, and there is a tradition that another, later king was entombed there alive, in a most barbaric fashion, to try to lay an evil haunt."

"I believe," said King Siegfried, "that I recall something about that part." _How many stories were ready to pounce out at them? _he had asked Rue that morning_. At least two, this time, but so tangled at that one place that to have one was to have both._

"There you are. I'll leave what you'll need with Her Majesty, unless you have your servant with you? No? Well, I have no doubt she'll organize the treatment you'll need." The King had no doubt of it either. His ears still rang from her– discussion– of his phrase 'a little worse for the wear,' from all those days ago, and of the fact that he had apparently confused the consequences of success and failure from the story.

"What I fear," added the brother as he packed away his supplies, "is that the destruction caused by the demonic Raven might become no more than a note added to the margins of this Kingdom's history. I was a novice when it happened. Those with the stomach to do so could watch part of it from the wall. Others, myself included, could only pray at the altar, knowing that we could offer no better help or defense. I remember the sudden silence, and all of us knowing nothing for certain until a runner came from the village and said that the beast had vanished and you with it, and that the King your father was dead, and the Queen with him, may they rest in peace."

The royal party had been offered the hospitality of the Abbey until they were fit for travel in a day or two. The morning after their arrival a thick letter had arrived addressed to the King. Duck's page had been short and to the point: _Gottfried and Kat send their love; so do Raetsel and Hans, who looked after them for a few days when she heard that Mytho and Rue needed you. Mytho and Autor and I are going to work on an easier way to bring you home than turning you into a bird, so please accept their hospitality for a time..._

And so on. She read it several times over, intensely homesick.

There was a concert in their honor later, perhaps the oddest she had attended. The carillon was played that afternoon. One sat in the sun or the shade, or wandered about the grounds and gardens as the brothers went about their business, but it could be heard plainly as far as the village. The ordinary services in the church, the plainsong echoing through the high nave, were another pleasure; so different from the music she danced to.

The day after, they went back to the castle for a few hours. Several young soldiers had taken the King up on his offer of a bonus for spending the night there. Nothing had happened, nothing had been seen or felt. The King and his party toured the works and gave the workmen something to talk about, then they all entered the Round Tower once more. When they all filed out the front door again, the King had two bird- skins over his arm. _Dormant_, he said, _sleeping._ With the story ended the skins were safer, though likely never completely powerless.

By the next morning there was a coach ready to take them home to the Palace.

"How does she _do_ that?" Her Royal Highness the Princess Elsa asked Duck in an aside. "They found that for her in the village on the way here, it's what the women wear for market day. I can't pull it off in full regalia."

'That' was Rue seeing to the King's comfort, arranging a seat so that he could lie down if he wished, making sure cushions wouldn't just slither and scatter about. Even the competent presence of the King's body-servant wasn't stopping her. She wasn't being loud or bossy or even particularly in the way. Things were just getting done to the Queen's satisfaction.

Duck laughed. "That's Rue. She could be like that in the ugliest school uniform you've ever seen too, especially where he was concerned."

"_And_ she looks good in anything."

"And we don't," agreed Duck. "I can't begin to wear bright oranges and reds well. You will, though, in a few years. Your hair just won't be as dark." Elsa's hair would probably have been called chestnut by a court poet and plain brown by anyone else.

Elsa looked sidelong up at Duck. "They want to send me to your Academy, don't they?"

"That will depend on a few things. Do you want to go?"

"I want to dance," said the Princess, determined. "I know what happens when I come of age. My parents won't force anyone on me, I'm sure of that, but it won't be the 'done thing' for me to take anything seriously but princessing and making myself into the perfect bride until I'm married off. I'll have to be perfect, too. I was born here, I'm who the whole Kingdom will be looking at, unless I manage to be, say, studying abroad. Then Sigmund will get all the attention. It might straighten him out."

"And if you go, and fail?"

"I won't," said Elsa. "You didn't. It just took you a little longer."

* * *

On the Kingdom's part it meant the construction of a road, or rather the clearing of an appropriate old track long abandoned. Connecting the road to someplace that could be reached from Goldkrone would take more time than was wanted, though, and so the King took Princess Tutu back home, flying in the swan- boat. They weren't sure when the road from Story to Story, as Elsa put it, would be ready, and so it was likely that the swans would be imposed upon once more to take Elsa to the Academy for next term.

Memories whirled about Duck's mind. Being a royal guest, and treated as a Princess, was a bit more than she had been prepared for, but she had managed not to disgrace her friends.

What had been a little unnerving was an unscheduled stop on the way from the Abbey to the Palace. On the second day someone had hailed them from the roadside. Wrapped in an unseasonable and faded black robe, he had bowed to their Majesties, and presented Duck with 'a gift for a writer,' and then simply turned and walked away. "That was him," the King said calmly. "The hermit, the first one to ever give me any information about Princess Tutu. Did you see his face?"

"Not really," Duck had said, quite shaken. "But what I did see–"

The King had nodded. The hermit had oddly protuberant eyes, of an impossible, familiar color. Duck had unwrapped the gift in private. It was a single acorn. Fakir and Autor, she knew, must be the ones to decide whether to use it.

What she remembered best was the School, and practice, getting back into her routine after days of having to make do, learning afresh from an instructor she didn't know and who didn't know her, and dancing with Rue and Mytho after all those years. Yesterday, she should have known something was up when Elsa and Rue wanted her to join them in wearing real costumes, and then moved the session to the stage where the orchestra was practicing. She had gotten to dance a _pas de deux_ with the King, as she had wanted to do all those years ago with the Prince, as herself. It had been the Nutcracker Prince and the Sugarplum Fairy; it had been great fun.

There had been rambunctious Sigmund, and shy and bookish Gunter, who just might want to follow in his sister's footsteps, and who would certainly want to meet Fakir and Autor and Gottfried; when, as he told Duck in a matter- of- fact tone, he got over being shy.

There had been sorting out everything that had happened. What no one else need know was that Elsa had been the one to reach for her swan- skin, atop the tower, and found that she no longer would fly. Silently she had handed it to her father, and he had picked up the black one, and so they had left. The skins were locked in the treasury now, in an underground vault, safe until they could be sent back safely to their home in the Round Tower. Both Elsa and Rue felt the loss of their wings, Duck knew.

There were many questions about the story, or perhaps stories, in which they had been caught up; questions that might never be answered. Hopefully it was all over now, and unimportant, mere fodder for recollection and debate. Hopefully.

In time they had asked Duck what had happened atop the tower, that last morning; had she still been a swan, or trying to change back into a duck? What she had felt, Duck recalled, was the last time she had been Princess Tutu, and a story's ending. She had almost turned back into a duck. Without Rue and Elsa there, reminding her, and without the ring she'd refused to leave behind, she might have lost herself entirely.

"So, is that a _magic_ ring?" Sigmund had asked, impressed.

Duck thought about it, amused. "It wasn't supposed to be," she said. "But I won't say it isn't." It wasn't big, or impressive, or expensive; but Fakir had not known, when he'd gotten it, of Edel's jewel named Courage. He'd just gotten the one that had a tiny ruby beside the equally- tiny diamond, remembering the pendant that she'd worn once; and when she had needed to remember who she was, it was what she'd had to remind herself, the only object she'd been able to think of that a bird could carry so far.

Maybe that did make it magic. She'd have to tell Fakir that.

It was cold up here without her down, just blankets. Behind her feet was jammed a bag; there was no excuse not to have a few presents for the children, and Fakir and Autor and Raetsel and Hans. Beside her the King had his attention on driving the swans. He would stay in Goldkrone for a day or so, a proud father arranging for his daughter's admission to the Goldkrone Academy. And there it was, the church tower on the horizon; there would be a man waiting on the dock at the lake, and her own family waiting for her when morning came.

* * *

Disclaimer: Princess Tutu and all related characters and elements are the property, copyright and trademark of HAL– GANSIS/TUTU and Ikukoh Itoh and no ownership or claim on said property, copyright or trademark is made or implied by their use in the work(s) of fan fiction presented here. This fan fiction constitutes a personal comment on the aforesaid properties pursuant to doctrines of fair use and fair comment. This fan fiction is non-commercial, not for sale or profit, and may not be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes.

If anyone figures out some music, let me know... Dvorak's "New World Symphony" is still bouncing around my head.

FFN does not allow the quotation of web addresses, but the first result of a Google search of " D. L. Ashliman swan maidens" should lead to a page with several stories, including the one from Germany used throughout this story, and several others.

My 'Hermit' is an extrapolation from aorphiusrex's much- appreciated translation work on the readable text that appears in the Princes Tutu anime. It was posted in June 2010 to the Princess Tutu community on LiveJournal. The pages in question appear in AKT 5, and are from _Prinz und Rabe_; the translation reads:

" 'Where is she?'

" Prince asked the old man. [blocked]

" 'Nobody knows that.'

" 'But she appears to people [blocked]

and rescues them through their heart[s] of great/large [blocked]

" 'I wish she would become my princess(1) [blocked]

and rescue [the?] sadness of the people together (2) [blocked]

Prince said and thought her depiction [blocked]

However.

" 'Dear prince, your wish [says?] nothing. (3)'

The old man simply smiled and said."

The second page:

" 'Dear Prince [offscreen]

The old man [offscreen]

'Princess Tutu? Who [offscreen]

Prince asked the old man [offscreen]

'People say about her [offscreen]

She has shining [offscreen]."

1 – the original German word ("warden") doesn't mean anything to the extent of my knowledge, and the way this sentence is used, I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be "werden," which means "to become."

2 – another "I don't know what they mean so I'm just gonna translate it literally" moment.

3 – "Erspricht" is another word that doesn't have a definition to my knowledge. They could have just meant "Spricht," meaning "speaks/says", or perhaps "Verspricht," meaning "promises" (as in "Your wish promises nothing.") "Nicht" ("not") should probably also be "nichts" ("Nothing")


End file.
